The octal number 40,000 corresponds to a decimal number of 16,384, and the DJIA closed at 16479.88 on December 26. The population of New York City, according to the 2010 census, was 8,175,133.

Today, it’s difficult to imagine how you could have mathematics without zero. In a positional number system, such as the decimal system we use now, the location of a digit is really important.