 Our first use of mathematics, in how far away is it, was the direct measurement of the distance between where I was standing and a pillar in my backyard. The mathematical foundations for this go to the number line, which is based on our concept of numbers, so we'll start with the number system. In the beginning, across all ancient cultures, there were natural numbers, or counting numbers. Like eggs in a basket, we can have one, or one more than that would be two, or one more than that would be three, etc. The beauty of mathematics is that it is so versatile. It can not only be used to count eggs, it can count money, or stars in our galaxy, or even galaxies within a range of redshifts to determine whether or not the universe is flat. The counting numbers did not include the number zero. You cannot count zero. Its origins date back to a famous ancient Indian scroll called the Bhakshali manuscript, created 1600 to 1700 years ago. Back then, it was written as a dot used as a placeholder for numbers larger than nine. If we add the number zero to our set of counting numbers, we get the set of whole numbers. There are multiple sets of symbols for these numbers. The most famous are the Roman numerals and the ten repeating positional Hindu-Arabic numerals. I've included the two repeating positional computer digits to highlight different base counting. The Hindu-Arabic numerals are by far the most useful and replace Roman numerals when the Roman Empire fell around 300 CE.