Because zero is a concept that can mean "at the beginning" The symbol changed over time as positional notation (for which zero was crucial), made its way to th

Because zero is a concept that can mean "at the beginning" The symbol changed over time as positional notation (for which zero was crucial), made its way to the Babylonian empire and from there to India, via the Greeks (in whose own culture zero made a late and only occasional appearance; the Romans had no trace of it at all) Another meaning is "nothing" but we're talking about position, not nothingness The mathematical zero and the philosophical notion of nothingness are related but are not the same. Nothingness plays a central role very early on in Indian thought (there called sunya), and we find speculation in virtually all cosmogonical myths about what must have preceded the world's creation. So in the Bible's book of Genesis (1:2): "And the earth was without form, and void." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-origin-of-zer https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-origi...