Final answer:
The numerical position of the first item in an array is 0 in most programming languages because they use zero-based indexing.In computer science, the first item in an array is located in the numerical position 0.
Step-by-step explanation:
When selecting an item from an array, the numerical position of the first item in most programming languages, such as Python, Java, and C++, is 0. This is because these languages use zero-based indexing, which means the index count starts from 0 rather than 1. So, if you have an array with several elements, the first element would be accessed with the index 0.In most programming languages, arrays are zero-indexed, which means that the first item in the array is located at the numerical position 0. This indexing convention is widely adopted in languages like C, C++, Java, Python, and many others.When accessing elements in an array, you use their index to specify their position. For example, if you have an array named `myArray`:pythonmyArray = [10, 20, 30, 40, 50],
The elements in the array are accessed as follows:myArray[0]` refers to the first element (10),myArray[1]` refers to the second element (20),myArray[2]` refers to the third element (30), and so on.The decision to start indexing at 0 is based on convention and simplifies many aspects of array manipulation and pointer arithmetic in programming languages. It aligns with the natural sequence of integers and has become a standard practice in computer science.It's important to note that some languages, like MATLAB, use one-based indexing, where the first element is at position 1. However, the majority of popular programming languages follow the zero-based indexing convention.