you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 30 points 2 years ago (10 children)

To be fair the system is hindu arabic.

Closer to hindu १२३ than arabic ١٢٣

  • source
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    How did they get mixed? I see 1 in arabic and 2 and 3 in Hindu. Is there a good place to start reading or watching about this in your opinion? If not, I'm just gonna YouTube the history of numbers and see where I land

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    IIRC Hindus invented this number system (with glyphs for 0-9), and then the Arabs starting using it. Eventually the west started using them and credited the Arabs.

    As for how they are written, everyone used the same shapes, and then they probably just ended up changing over time (“Hmm…how do I write that number again? Oh whatever I’ll just make it up”)

    Feel free to do your own research though.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    IIRC Hindus didn't have a "proper" 0, and Arabs did, which I guess is the reason why they got the credit

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I am speechless. My guy. Aryabhatta.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    Yeah after some quick googling it looks like I'm wrong. I'm quite sure that's what I was taught in school though, so blame my teacher !

    Basically I was taught that Hindus invented the 0 for base-10 numerals, but didn't actually use it for maths (e.g 0*x = 0), whereas Arab mathematicians did.

  • source
  • parent