Questions: Can negative numbers exist without zero? Did they have negative numbers during Rome's golden age? Why exactly does 0 not obey those rules (I can see how it doesn't, but WHY)?
Comment: It's amazing the power zero and negative numbers have. Whats even more impressive is the kind of mind it takes to recognize these things. There is a philosophical idea that something that can not be comprehended can not exist (seriously, try thinking of something that doesn't exist), so up until a certain point no one could really know what these numbers were. Especially since I feel there are very few applications for negative numbers and zero back in the day. Negative numbers could be used to calculate debt but numbers were first conceived from counting. Numbers count an amount of something that is there, zero accounts for something that isn't there so it would take a revolutionary mind to think of something that doesn't exist. Negative numbers count even less than non-existent so it would take yet another revolutionary mind. To think, these sets of nobodies and less-than-nobodies have some much power in the mathematical world. My only real concern about these seemingly untouchable ideas is, human are imperfect therefore what we come up with will be imperfect, so what potential flaws are there in the system of math or in zero and negative numbers?
