3 ms·

Hmm, did the monks have no concept of 0? 0 doesn't exist in this font. However, their system can very easily support 0: just a vertical line.

• layer8 8mo ago
  Roman numerals also don’t have a zero. In Europe, use of zero only became predominant in the 16th century
  • cvoss 8mo ago
    Indeed, it was a hot topic for Shakespeare. https://theconversation.com/shakespeare-by-numbers-how-mathematical-breakthroughs-influenced-the-bards-plays-202020 https://theconversation.com/shakespeare-by-numbers-how-mathe...
• garciansmith 8mo ago
  Sometimes they would write "nil."
  • lysp 8mo ago
    So the concept of null?
    • phatskat 8mo ago
      Honestly I’ve always separated the two in my brain but never really thought about it. Nil = 0 or the absence of a quantity, null = the absence of any value at all.
      • Thorrez 7mo ago
        What do you think of Go's nil vs Java's null?