Albert Breer names Giants "a dark horse candidate" for the Super Bowl

[Bob In PA]

Good question, Chris. As a matter of fact, the Romans never had a zero, or even a system of numbers as we would think of it today. In any case, they didn't use their "numerals" for arithmetic. They did their adding and subtracting with the use of an abacus.

I'm not sure when I first learned that, but certainly it was before my cognitive decline went into overdrive.

Cheers!

Larry: At least you still have fuel still left in the tank AFTER subtracting for the cognitive decline! Bob

[kartanoman]

Good question, Chris. As a matter of fact, the Romans never had a zero, or even a system of numbers as we would think of it today. In any case, they didn't use their "numerals" for arithmetic. They did their adding and subtracting with the use of an abacus.

I'm not sure when I first learned that, but certainly it was before my cognitive decline went into overdrive.

Cheers!

Thank you, Mr. Larry, for that tidbit of knowledge!

I will take heart in that, at least in the earliest years of my Parochial elementary education, the use of an abacus as a daily tool was as common as a Rosary, a Baltimore Catechism and a Nun's "Louisville Slugger!" (i.e. the wooden pointer with the rubber tip which often made contact on our proverbial "sweet spots" after missing enough questions during drill-down following the Lesson of the Day; that and the, uh, "Deportment issues!")

Peace!

[AZGiantFan]

Good question, Chris. As a matter of fact, the Romans never had a zero, or even a system of numbers as we would think of it today. In any case, they didn't use their "numerals" for arithmetic. They did their adding and subtracting with the use of an abacus.

I'm not sure when I first learned that, but certainly it was before my cognitive decline went into overdrive.

Cheers!

Some say zero was invented by the Mayans, others say it was Indian mathematicians.  And it was brought to the West by Fibonacci, he of the fascinating fibonacci sequence, 1 1 2 3 5 8 . . . where each number is the sum of the previous 2.

[kartanoman]

This discussion regarding the origins of zero is becoming far more interesting than Albert Breer and his "Dark Horses."

I would have surmised, from ancient cultures pre-dating the Egyptians, that Mesopotamia might have been the place where the concept of zero originated. Evidence from the Sumerian culture, dating back 5,000 years, in their cuneiform symbols, a "double wedge" would be written in a position where one would expect a digit, to denote an absence of one, which would indicate a zero as we would know it. Other cultures, as have been discovered, would come to invent it independently of the Mesopotamians.

The concept of "zero," as a number, and "zero," in terms of nothingness, is yet another discussion which has its own origin point.

We can go on and on but, out of respect for the original post, I'll stop here.

Peace!

[Painter]

Thank you, Mr. Larry, for that tidbit of knowledge!

I will take heart in that, at least in the earliest years of my Parochial elementary education, the use of an abacus as a daily tool was as common as a Rosary, a Baltimore Catechism and a Nun's "Louisville Slugger!" (i.e. the wooden pointer with the rubber tip which often made contact on our proverbial "sweet spots" after missing enough questions during drill-down following the Lesson of the Day; that and the, uh, "Deportment issues!")

Peace!

You just sent a chill through me, Chris. Talk about shared experience...Yikes!

Cheers!

[y_so_blu]

Did this guy watch a single Giants game last season? 

[MightyGiants]

It was mostly just a general comment about the time of year. Summer tends to abound with optimism for all 32 fan bases, even those of the seven or eight worst teams (see ours), and everyone loves an outlier type call. Media types tend to cater to that at this type of year, even the higher profile ones like Breer.

While neither of us knows what motivated Breer to answer the way he did, I tend to doubt your suggestion that he cynically picked a team with supposedly a large fanbase.  I tend to think, in this case, the simplest answer is the best answer, that he believes the Giants have the potential to surprise.