Me too, I just don't want to ever leak like one!

Man did that make working on the darn thing a miserable experience, but what a beautiful machine she was.

But being an Eagle Keeper was pretty sweet, too. What a classy lady.

If I remember correctly, the SR-71 was put into service in 1964... the same year I was born

 

When I was a kid I was taught that the zero was invented by the Mayas... but that was more than 40 years ago... guess history has been revised, or that my Mexican teachers were too proud of their heritage to admit otherwise...

Even if if the Mayas had invented the zero first they are obviously not the source of the zero that is used in our number system. Their number system basically lived and died with them.

 

If I remember correctly, the SR-71 was put into service in 1964... the same year I was born

That sounds about right. I was born the following year. I wish they were still flying, but I have to admit that had I been the one to make the decision, I would almost certainly have retired the fleet, too. Not without anguish and agony, but it was probably the right thing to do.

 

Even if if the Mayas had invented the zero first they are obviously not the source of the zero that is used in our number system. Their number system basically lived and died with them.

Agreed. I'm not aware of any path that would have allowed their developments to affect our number system until much, much later.

Did the Arabs, who much of our (i.e., "western civ") math and knowledge in general came from, have the concept of zero? If so, where did it originate?

 

Even if if the Mayas had invented the zero first they are obviously not the source of the zero that is used in our number system. Their number system basically lived and died with them.

Quite true... they didn't have a positional sort of system... it died with them also because it wasn't very practical... Actually, their civilization disappeared almost 1,000 years before the spaniards arrived, and two of the reasons was the jealousy with which they kept their own knowledge (mathematics, astronomy, etc) since they didn't like to share it with anyone, even among themselves... and the other reason was the ugly word: inbreeding... Another interesting number system was invented by the Incas, though I'm not sure if they had the concept of zero