Why null values in database?

The 'null'-content of any given field is just that. It's a 'nothing'. Example, if you create a database to hold chemical values for instance. If the values are, for example, real nubers. That would imply that any value that has 0 in it, is just that; zero. It was beeing measured, and found to contain zero. On the other hand if a value was not tested, the value of that compound should be set to 'null'. If a 'null' value isn't supported by the database a workaround is to set 'null' values to -1 (as per the example above). --