What would have happen if zero was never invented and we had to use a number system much like that of Roman number system?

May be We have to cal...You must be signed in to read this answer.Connected to GoogleConnected to FacebookBy continuing you indicate that you have read and agree to the .  Loading account...Complete Your ProfileFull NameChecking...EmailChecking...PasswordChecking...By creating an account you indicate that you have read and agree to the .

May be I would have i...

Kapil Sibal would hav...

no maths tension

No school teacher could have had the pleasure of awarding zero mark to any pupil.

To plug a book by a friend and teacher of mine, I recommend http://www.amazon.com/The-Nothing-that-Is-Natural/dp/0195142373s. I think it's fair to say that 95% of mathematical advances, from double entry accounting on, depend on this concept. Without it math as we know it simply would not exist.

From http://pages.bangor.ac.uk/~mas010/pstacks.htm: [Alexander Grothendieck] wrote that mathematics was held up for centuries for lack of the `trivial' concept of zero.

Numbers are theoretical models, they can't and are not needed to be discovered in order for math to work. Numbers don't intrinsically exist, they are models we use to describe the quantitative nature of things. Number zero represents a lack of a thing, and as such can be comprehended as well as 'not found' in nature. That aside, the point is that a mathematical model does not need to have 'a manifestation' in the nature, a lot of mathematical models are indeed first extrapolated from the ones that are already known, only to be later found that there's somewhere something in the physical world they can be useful for describing.

One does not need the zero to count or to add.  And if one restricts subtraction to taking the smaller quantity from the larger one does not  need the  zero there. Not having the zero  blocks generality and it stymies the development of a decent number system.   With positional  notation the notational length is proportional to the logarithm of the number..  With the tally system  the notational length is proportional to the number.  That kills dealing with very large and very small numbers. The zero gave our mathematics generality which gave us a technological capability.  If we never developed the zero,  we would not be having this conversation on a computer base communication system.