Zero: A Special Case

Zero is an important number in mathematics today, but it has not always been so! People used numbers for thousands of years before they used zero. In fact, people did not even have a symbol for zero until after the common era (C.E.) began. Today, we use zero to help represent large numbers, such as one million, 1 000 000, or small numbers, such as onethousandth, 0.001. We use zero in unique ways when we add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Although zero is an integer, it is neither positive nor negative. For these reasons, mathematicians often test their theories and ideas using zero as a special case.