Zilch, Nada, Bupkis
It’s interesting to think about a world where the concept of zero doesn’t exist. It’s not that farfetched. Zero seems to have been invented long after other numbers, and doesn’t really arise from any desire to signify existential absence, only mathematical absence. It looks like zero was invented as a placeholder in mathematical operations. If you have a number in the tens column but nothing in the ones column, you put a little circle there so the rows stay straight. Someone thought that up in about 900 CE, apparently. The Arabic word for it, صف , signifies “sifre,” or “empty,” like “cypher,” or “chiffre,” meaning “figure,” also the name of the James Bond villain from Casino Royale , which is now my favorite movie character name—“Le Chiffre?” as in “The Figure?” or “The Empty?” I mean… that’s brilliant character naming, especially in a movie that involves lots of poker chips. My point, though, is that zero came to exist because of specific mathematical oper