††††The numbers we use today, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc., are called Arabic numbers. They reached western Europe from Arabia in about 1200 AD. Before that Latin numerals were used in Europe. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all evolved their own number systems, although, like the Arabs, they did not have a zero. The zero was introduced from India by Arab mathematicians in the 6th century AD. Another Arab mathematician, Muhammed ibn Al-khwarizmi, took it to Europe in the 8th century. The introduction of a zero allowed a place-value system to be devised, on which the decimal system is based.
