Inference of Zero and Negative Numbers
When using a counting board or abacus the rows or columns often represent nothing, or zero. Since the Romans used Roman numerals to record results, and since Roman numerals were all positive, there was no need for a zero notation. But the Romans clearly knew the concept of zero occurring in any place value, row or column.
It may be also possible to infer that they were familiar with the concept of a negative number as Roman merchants needed to understand and manipulate liabilities against assets and loans versus investments.
Read more about this topic: Roman Abacus
Famous quotes containing the words inference, negative and/or numbers:
“I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old. I have heard that whenever the name of man is spoken, the doctrine of immortality is announced; it cleaves to his constitution. The mode of it baffles our wit, and no whisper comes to us from the other side. But the inference from the working of intellect, hiving knowledge, hiving skill,—at the end of life just ready to be born,—affirms the inspirations of affection and of the moral sentiment.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The idealist’s programme of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“He bundles every forkful in its place,
And tags and numbers it for future reference,
So he can find and easily dislodge it
In the unloading. Silas does that well.
He takes it out in bunches like birds’ nests.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)