ON reading the letter on the “Origin of the Numerals” (vol. xii. p. 476) I was reminded of some portions of their history which I had before noted down, and which are essential to any consideration of ...

I find the history of numbers so much more fascinating than the application of numbers. Who cares about learning calculus, when you can geek out on the brief history of numerical systems? Alessandra ...

THAT the Roman numerals, in their primitive forms, articulately symbolized a quinary notation based on the hand sign V, is the view which the following observations are intended to explain.

Before the 13th century Europeans used Roman numerals to do arithmetic. Leonardo of Pisa, better known today as Fibonacci, is largely responsible for the adoption of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system in ...

This inscription, written in Old Khmer, reads “The Caka era reached year 605 on the fifth day of the waning moon.” The dot (at right) is now recognized as the oldest known version of our zero. Amir ...

Have you ever carefully noticed the digits we use every day - 1, 2, 3, and so on? Have you asked yourself where they came from? Most people think, since we refer to them as "Arabic numerals," that ...

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