The Power of Nothing

For my research paper and graphic novel, I chose the number zero as my technology.  The development of this number is quite the story, from the unknown scribe in Sumer, all the way to merchants in the streets in India.  All these people needed this idea, and for different reasons.  In Sumer, they needed a way to write down numbers for their records.  In Maya, they needed it for their calendar.  And in India, they needed it for trade.  Why did this concept bring different results in all these countries?  Well, it all really depended on what they needed it for.  Since Sumer needed it for records, that's what they used it for.  The anonymous scribe in Sumer who originally invented zero made it for that reason, but his "zero" was like this: 23| |9.  He didn't think of it in anything else, just writing down that number.  In India, merchants came up with zero for trading purposes, so it resulted in a boom of trade and people could buy and sell much easier.  In Maya, really all the cared about was their calendar, and they used a symbol for zero that looked like this:.  Today we use zero for all of these purposes, but in the past, many civilizations only used their inventions for what they created it to serve.