Research Paper On The Mayan Number System

Imagine that you are a world renowned mathematician traveling to a new city to display your intellect. However, you prove to not be as well educated, as the people use this weird new number, one that you have never heard before. What is the number? Zero. Many civilizations around the time of the Maya also had incredible number systems, such as the Arabic numeral system and Roman numerals, but none of them were as exact as the Maya. While the Maya had a massive trade system, extravagant architecture, and accurate calendars, their greatest achievement was their number system.
However, the Mayan trade system was also quite extensive, thus making it grand as well. The system went around all the city-states and helped exchange their surplus of items for meager items. To trade was very difficult as there were different terrains, such as high mountains and swampy lowlands, merchants had to carry goods by hand or by boat, and they carried their good for ten hours per day at one to three miles per hour. Thus, traders had to be tireless in order to keep the
While the Europeans had numbers that had the same ideas as each other, the Mayans were located all the way in South America, which is far away from Europe. Despite the distance between the Maya and other civilizations, they created their own number system, which was based around the number twenty. But what was most remarkable was the fact that the Maya were one of the first civilizations to discover the number zero. While this does not seem like such a feat, remember that zero holds a empty number value, which is very important for math. Without zero, you would have no 10s, 20s, or $50 bills, since zero wouldn't exist. Their number system is genius since they were able to understand the concept of a number to represent nothing. The number zero is very significant, as without it, we wouldn't be a accurate as we are