Arab mathematicians brought and implemented 1-9 counting numerals from India around 800 CE to replace ciphered numerals. The earlier Arab Hellene numeration practices had mapped the counting numbers to alphabetic symbols. The Hellene and Greeks ciphered numeral systems followed a numeration practice that had been first established by 2,000 BCE Egyptians. Greeks, for example, ciphered their counting numbers excluding zero to Ionian and Doric letter symbols. In Greek and Hellene math of a fraction $1/n$ was written as $n$ '.

It is important to note that Greeks, Egyptians and Babylonians understood zero, but not as a theoretical number. The Greek symbol wrote zero as a oval, topped with two dots. 1500 BCE Egyptians used the word sfr for zero in double entry accounting and other engineering purposes. Neuegebaur reported that Babylonians also used a practical zero around the same time that the Egyptian zero appeared.

Overall, Arab and East Indian base 10 innovations developed several elements of our modern decimal system that were translated into Arabic numerals by 800 AD Arabs. Pope Sylvester in 999 CE popularized the Arab translations of Egyptian fraction arithmetic and other mathematics, a major step that brought 1-9 numerals to Europe. Fibonacci's 1202 CE Liber Abaci, for example, defined medieval abstract arithmetic and other higher mathematics in Arab numerals. The higher mathematics included lattice multiplication, double false position, Diophantine indeterminate equations, Babylonian square root, algorithms, and aspects of the Chinese Remainder Theorem methods that arrived via the Silk Road (the later noted by Needham).

The higher medieval math resources may have motivated Renaissance mathematicians to bring together Arab numerals, Arab algorithms, and practical zero ideas together as elements of the decimal system. Whatever the reasons, after the closure of the Silk Road in 1454 CE, zero was soon added as a theoretical number within our base 10 decimal system that also added an algorithm within the binomial theorem. The well known definition of $$n^0 = 1$$ became an element. The details of the base 10 decimal system were recorded in 1585 CE by Simon Stevin. Stevin used zero as a place-holder and as a theoretical number in two books, one for science, and one for business. Both books were approved by the Paris Academy. Several scholars have given credit to Napier for the popularization of the decimal system with the publication of logarithms and Napier's Bones, and Arab or Hellene lattice multiplication method that was noted by Fibonacci. Napier's numeration publications facilitated several science activities, one being Galileo's 1609 astronomical work.