Actually, it's about _zero_.

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From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_yeats.ucc.ie>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 15:01:31 GMT

Steve Lieb stateth:
> To regress slightly, it's not that the CONCEPT of nothing was invented, it
> was the concept of the "zero" character: that something should represent
> nothing.

To be more precise, it's the idea of a _numeral_ zero; that zero is a valid and useful mathematic entity. Clearer examples are the 'discovery' of negative integers, complex numbers, etc (which to this day, stroppy students of various ages complain are "not proper numbers").

> At least that's what it was in the RW as I understand it. Clearly everyone
> knew that if you had three apples and took away three apples, you had
> nothing left.

Consider, glasshoppah, the conceptual leap involved from 'nothing' to 'zero apples'. (And indeed, the increase in abstraction involved.)

Slan libh,
Alex.