>
> > The zero originated with ancient Indian mathematicians; this was
> > incorporated
> > into the Arabic system of numbering which is what we use, almost completely
> > unchanged, to this day.
> > RK
> >
>
> When Al-Harizmi (Al-gorithm) met the gypsies from India, he made the
> Arab governor to pursuade the gypsies to teach their secret science of
> numbers to him. He learned the numbers from 1 to 9, and the decimal
> representation. BUT, the gypsies were not using a symbol for "zero",
> instead leaving that place empty, which confuses 1 with 10 or 100, etc.
> The numbers used now by the Arabs consists of the curves that the gypsies
> taught Al-Harizmi except for the zero, which is represented by a "dot".
> After that, the famous decimal way of making multiplications, divisions,
> additions, etc. became a "method" rather than a "magic" which only the
> ones with strong counting capabilities could do.
>
> I wonder the way it spread to the world. It is unlikely that Greeks
> (Byzantine?) were the first to utilize it, though.
Yes, the Greks were amongst the first to use it in practical mathematics as
well as
astro calculations. Even the word ALGEBRA has its root in Arabic.
However, these werent put to "paractical" use until the Greeks measured the
Earth's
diamter and circumference a few thousand years ago.
The Byzantine empire had nothing to do with it.
--
Regards,
Alexander
http://www.mediadyne.gr/photos
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