Early Nothing

The zero is worth more than nothing. Without it, we would not have a place-holder that makes modern math possible. The ancient Roman system, seen every now and again on clocks and movie credits, is incredibly unwieldy when you get to doing anything more than add and subtract. And if there's a string of numbers, even adding and subtracting might bo awry, meaning that it's the existence of the zero that allows us to balance our checkbooks.

Of course, the existence of the zero merely makes such balancing possible. As the federal government regularly demonstrates, zeroes can also be used to spend money that technically it doesn't have.

No one really knows when and where the zero was invented, although the best guess is that it comes from an ancient Asian culture. The earliest known use of the zero comes from 683 AD, on a stone tablet in Cambodia. It was lost during the vicious Khmer Rouge regime. A writer for Discovery magazine found it again so it can be displayed in a museum.

That's the earliest known zero. To view the latest known zero, simply turn on any show with "Real Housewives" in the title.