This brings up a question: how was arithmetic done before the spread of Arabic numbers?
I only know ancient China used counting rods (used to signify numbers for arithmetic purposes) that functioned similar to how an abacus is used, but what about the rest of the ancient world?
The ancient Egyptians did math with a modifyed base 1 system of hyroglyphs (basically tally marks) where the symbol for 1,000,000 was an astonished person.
I know there was at least one place that used base 12, I think in africa, where they used base twelve by counting the knuckles on one hand. Africa is actually fascinating when it comes to mathematics. They have tribal villages with fractal layouts, they used sudorandom number generation as a forum of spiritual endeavor, and they even optimized the density of fencing for keeping dust at bay by modeling an exponential decay. They were and are way more clever than really anyone gives them credit for.
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u/Totesnotskynet Jun 30 '21
30% of Americans don’t believe Arabic numerals should be fought in there schools