The numbers we use daily, called "Arabic numerals," actually originated in ancient India around the 6th century CE, including the groundbreaking concept of zero.

Like Roman numerals, their system borrowed letters; like the Arabic numerals we still use, it only needed one symbol for each decimal place. In the 6th century BCE, the Greek alphabet used 24 letters.

It’s a nice little number pun, but honestly, Roman numerals aren’t good for much — just try doing your taxes with them. By the sixth century A.D. (and possibly even earlier) a much better system, now ...