Re:The oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a defini...
by KMag on Sunday May 26, 2013 @04:52AM
(#5770534)
> Solving the second implies in some way having already solved the first, due to the nature of positional systems.
Untrue. (Edit: actually true). It works perfectly well to have a decimal number system using digits 1-10 instead of 0-9. For sake of notation, let's say A is the digit representing 10.
"A" = 10, "11" = 11, "19" = 19, "1A" = 20, "21" = 21, etc.
Edit: actually, I misread your argument. What you argued is definitionally true.
1) Dealing with '0' as an ordinary number.
2) Using a positional number system, which requires a symbol or context for telling '1230' from '1023' and '1203', etc.
One tends to think that solving the first issue leads to the second. Solving the second implies in some way having already solved the first, due to the nature of positional systems.