Yes, as far as numbers go, there's not much ambiguity, unless it's ambiguous math on purpose, like a postulate. Which reminds me, years ago I read an entire book about zero and the evolution of numbers. I think it was http://www.amazon.com/The-Nothig-that-Is-Natural/dp/01951423... the part about clay tablets made an impression. If we had eight fingers, would we do octal calculations? Hehe. Anyway, thanks for the reply. For the record, I wasn't meaning to imply science is super ambiguous.

I enjoyed these books on the history of that question:

Charles Seife's "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" (http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Idea-ebook/dp...)

Robert Kaplan's "The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero" (http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-that-Natural-History-ebook/dp/...)