“The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple mathematical fact that zero equals zero” —Steven PinkerZero is one of the greatest gifts ever granted to humanity. It forms the basis of calculation, statistics, financial accounting and modern computers. Zero is believed to have originated in three distinct places: Mesopotamia, India, and Mesoamerica. In Mesopotamia, the first records of scratch date back to 300 BCE. To them, zero was just a placeholder between the digits of a number such as 502 and never had an actual numerical value. Likewise, the Mayans in 350 CE independently began using zero, but much like Mesopotamia, this was strictly for maintaining a location (www.mediatinker.com). In 500 CE, ancient India created the first known actual concept of scratch. In 628 CE, Indian mathematician Brahmagupta wrote down the rules of zero in his book Bramhasputha Siddhanta. In this book, the rules he refers to are one, zero does not change the number value when added or subtracted, and two, when zero is multiplied by a number, the value becomes nothing (www.xslv. org)....