NUMBER SYSTEM
KANAK MOGHA
IX-D
INDEX
1.INTRODUCTION
2.NUMBERS IN EARLY INDIA
3.EARLIEST INDIAN LITERARY AND
ARCHEOLOGICAL REFERENCES
4.THE DECIMAL SYSTEM
5.ZERO BECOMES A REAL NUMBER
6.PANINI’S SYSTEMIZATION OF SANSKRIT &
BINARY NUMBER SYSTEM
7.THE DECIMAL SYSTEM SPREADS TO MUSLIM
COUNTRIES
8.HISTORY OF INFINITY
9.HISTORY OF GOLDEN RATIO
10.MODERN NUMBER SYSTEMS
INTRODUCTON
Numbers and counting have become an integral part of our everyday life, especially when we take into
account the modern computer.These words you are reading have been recorded on a computer using a
code of ones and zeros. It is an interesting story how these digits have come to dominate our world.
Presently, the earliest known archaeological evidence of any form of writing or counting are scratch
marks on a bone from 150,000 years ago. But the first really solid evidence of counting,in the form of the
number one, is from a mere twenty-thousand years ago. An ishango bone was found in the Congo with two
identical markings of sixty scratches each and equally numbered groups on the back.These markings are a
certain indication of counting and they mark a defining moment in western civilization.
Zoologists tell us that mammals other than humans are only able to count up to three or four, while our
early ancestors were able to count further.They believed that the necessity for numbers became more
apparent when humans started to build their own houses, as opposed to living in caves and the like.
Anthropologists tell us that in Suma, in about 4,000 BCE, Sumerians used tokens to represent numbers, an
improvement over notches in a stick or bone. A very important development from using tokens to
represent numbers was that in addition to adding tokens you can also take away, giving birth to
arithmetic, an event of major significance.The Sumerian’s tokens made possible the arithmetic required
for them to assess wealth, calculate profit and loss and even more importantly, to collect taxes, as well
as keep permanent records. The standard belief is that in this way numbers became the world’s first
writings and thus accounting was born.
More primitive societies, such as the Wiligree of Central Australia, never used numbers, nor felt the need
for them. Sumerians on the other side of the world feel the need for simple mathematics because they
lived in cities which required organizing. For example, grain needed to be stored and determining how
much each citizen received required arithmetic.
Egyptians loved all big things, such as big buildings, big statues and big armies. They developed numbers
of drudgery for everyday labor and large numbers for aristocrats, such as a thousand, ten thousand and
even a million.The Egyptians transformation of using “one” from counting things to measuring things
was of great significance.Their enthusiasm for building required accurate measurements so they defined
their own version of “one.” A cubit was defined as the length of a mans arm from elbow to finger tips
plus the width of his palm. Using this standardized measure of “one” the Egyptians completed vast
construction projects, such as their great pyramids, with astonishing accuracy.
Two and a half thousand years ago, in 520 BCE, Pythagorus founded his vegetarian school of math in
Greece. Pythagorus was intrigued by whole numbers,noticing that pleasing harmonies are combinations
of whole numbers. Convinced that the number one was the basis of the universe, he tried to make all
three sides of a triangle an exact number of units, a feat which he was not able to accomplish. He was
thus defeated by his own favorite geometrical shape, one for which he would be forever famous.His
Pythagorean theorem has been credited to him, even though ancient Indian texts, the Sulva Sutras (800
BCE) and the Shatapatha Brahmana (8th to 6th centuries BCE) prove that this theorem was known in
India some two thousand years before his birth.
Later in the third century BCE, Archimedes, the renowned Greek scientist, who loved to play games
with numbers, entered the realm of the unimaginable, trying to calculate such things as how many
grains of sand would fill the entire universe. Some of these intellectual exercises proved to be useful,
such as turning a sphere into a cylinder. His formula was later used to take a globe and turn it into a flat
map.
Romans invading Greece were interested in power, not abstract mathematics. They killed Archimedes in
212 BCE and thereby impeded the development of mathematics. Their system of Roman numerals was
too complicated for calculating, so actual counting had to be done on a counting board, an early form of
the abacus.
Although the usage of the Roman numeral system spread all over Europe and remained the dominant
numeral system for more than five hundred years, not a single Roman mathematician is celebrated
today. The Romans were more interested in using numbers to record their conquests and count dead
bodies.
NUMBERS IN EARLY INDIA
In India, emphasis was not on military organization but in finding enlightenment.
Indians, as early as 500 BCE, devised a system of different symbols for every number
from one to nine, a system that came to be called Arabic numerals, because they
spread first to Islamic countries before reaching Europe centuries later.
What is historically known goes back to the days of the Harappan civilization (2,600-
3,000 BCE). Since this Indian civilization delved into commerce and cultural activities,
it was only natural that they devise systems of weights and measurements. For example
a bronze rod marked in units of 0.367 inches was discovered and points to the degree of
accuracy they demanded. Evidently,such accuracy was required for town planning and
construction projects.Weights corresponding to units of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10,
20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 have been discovered and they obviously played important
parts in the development of trade and commerce.
It seems clear from the early Sanskrit works on mathematics that the insistent demand
of the times was there, for these books are full of problems of trade and social
relationships involving complicated calculations. There are problems dealing with
taxation, debt and interest, problems of partnership, barter and exchange, and the
calculation of the fineness of gold. The complexities of society, government operations
and extensive trade required simpler methods of calculation.
EARLIEST INDIAN LITERARY AND
ARCHEOLOGICAL REFERENCES
The origin of the modern decimal-based place value system is ascribed to the Indian mathematician
Aryabhata I, 498 CE. Using Sanskrit numeral words for the digits, Aryabhata stated “Sthanam sthanam dasa
gunam” or “place to place is ten times in value.”The oldest record of this value place assignment is in a
document recorded in 594 CE, a donation charter of Dadda III of Sankheda in the Bharukachcha region.
The earliest recorded inscription of decimal digits to include the symbol for the digit zero, a small circle,
was found at the Chaturbhuja Temple at Gwalior, India, dated 876 CE.This Sanskrit inscription states that
a garden was planted to produce flowers for temple worship and calculations were needed to assure they
had enough flowers. Fifty garlands are mentioned (line 20), here 50 and 270 are written with zero. It is
accepted as the undisputed proof of the first use of zero.
The usage of zero along with the other nine digits opened up a whole new world of science for the
Indians. Indeed Indian astronomers were centuries ahead of the Christian world.The Indian scientists
discovered that the earth spins on its axis and moves around the sun, a fact that Copernicus in Europe
didn’t understand until a thousand years later—a discovery that he would have been persecuted for, had
he lived longer.
THE DECIMAL SYSTEM
The Indian numerals are elements of Sanskrit and existed in several variants well before their
formal publication during the late Gupta Period (c. 320-540 CE). In contrast to all earlier number
systems, the Indian numerals did not relate to fingers, pebbles, sticks or other physical objects.
The development of this system hinged on three key abstract (and certainly non-intuitive)
principles:
(a) The idea of attaching to each basic figure graphical signs which were removed from all intuitive
associations, and did not visually evoke the units they represented;
(b) The idea of adopting the principle according to which the basic figures have a value which
depends on the position they occupy in the representation of a number; and
(c) The idea of a fully operational zero, filling the empty spaces of missing units and at the same
time having the meaning of a null number.
The great intellectual achievement of the Indian number system can be appreciated when it is
recognized what it means to abandon the representation of numbers through physical objects. It
indicates that Indian priest-scientists thought of numbers as an intellectual concept, something abstract
rather than concrete. This is a prerequisite for progress in mathematics and science in general, because
the introduction of irrational numbers such as “pi,” the number needed to calculate the area inside a
circle, or the use of imaginary numbers is impossible unless the link between numbers and physical
objects is broken.
The Indian number system is exclusively a base 10 system, in contrast to the Babylonian (modern-day
Iraq) system, which was base 60; for example, the calculation of time in seconds, minutes and hours. By
the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the Babylonian mathematics had a sophisticated sexagesimal
positional numeral system (based on 60, not 10). Despite the invention of zero as a placeholder, the
Babylonians never quite discovered zero as a number.
The lack of a positional value (or zero) was indicated by a space between sexagesimal numerals.They
added the “space” symbol for the zero in about 400 BC. However, this effort to save the first place-
value number system did not overcome its other problems and the rise of Alexandria spelled the end of
the Babylonian number system and its cuneiform (hieroglyphic like) numbers.
The Mayans in Central America independently invented zero in the fourth century CE.Their priest-
astronomers used a snail-shell-like symbol to fill gaps in the (almost) base-20 positional ‘long-count’
system they used to calculate their calendar. They were highly skilled mathematicians, astronomers,
artists and architects. However, they failed to make other key discoveries and inventions that might
have helped their culture survive. The Mayan culture collapsed mysteriously around 900 CE. Both the
Babylonians and the Mayans found zero the symbol, yet missed zero the number. Although China
independently invented place value, they didn’t make the leap to zero until it was introduced to them
by a Buddhist astronomer from India in 718 CE.
ZERO BECOMES A REAL NUMBER
The concept of zero as a number and not merely a symbol for separation is attributed to India
where by the 9th century CE practical calculations were carried out using zero, which was treated
like any other number, even in the case of division.
The story of zero is actually a story of two zeroes: zero as a symbol to represent nothing and zero
as a number that can be used in calculations and has its own mathematical properties.
It has been commented that in India, the concept of nothing is important in its early religion and
philosophy and so it was much more natural to have a symbol for it than for the Latin (Roman)
and Greek systems. The rules for the use of zero were written down first by Brahmagupta, in his
book “Brahmasphutha Siddhanta” (The Opening of the Universe) in the year 628 CE. Here
Brahmagupta considers not only zero, but negative numbers, and the algebraic rules for the
elementary operations of arithmetic with such numbers.
“The importance of the creation of the zero mark can never be exaggerated.This giving to airy
nothing, not merely a local habitation and a name, a picture, a symbol, but helpful power, is the
characteristic of the Hindu race from whence it sprang. It is like coining the Nirvana into
dynamos. No single mathematical creation has been more potent for the general on-go of
intelligence and power.” - G. B. Halsted 5
A very important distinction for the Indian symbol for zero, is that, unlike the Babylonian and
Mayan zero, the Indian zero symbol came to be understood as meaning nothing.
As the Indian decimal zero and its new mathematics spread from the Arab world to
Europe in the Middle Ages, words derived from sifr and zephyrus came to refer to
calculation, as well as to privileged knowledge and secret codes. Records show that the
ancient Greeks seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number. This lead to
philosophical and, by the Medieval period, religious arguments about the nature and
existence of zero and the vacuum.
The word “zero” came via the French word zéro, and cipher came from the Arabic word
safira which means “it was empty.” Also sifr, meaning “zero” or “nothing,” was the
translation for the Sanskrit word sunya, which means void or empty.
The number zero was especially regarded with suspicion in Europe, so much so that the
word cipher for zero became a word for secret code in modern usage. It is very likely a
linguistic memory of the time when using decimal arithmetic was deemed evidence of
dabbling in the occult, which was potentially punishable by the all-powerful Catholic
Church with death.
PANINI’S SYSTEMIZATION OF SANSKRIT & BINARY
NUMBER SYSTEM
Panini's precise systematization of the Sanskrit language in the 4th or 7th century BCE is widely
considered as a forerunner of the Backus Normal Form (discovered by John Backus in 1959), which
forms the basis of the current computer language. Panini is recognized as one of the foremost
geniuses of ancient India and is credited with the systematization of Sanskrit as a language. Panini's
work was so thorough that no one in the past 2,000 years has been able to improve on it. He
codified every aspect of spoken communication, including pronunciation, tones and gestures. NASA
scientist Rick Briggs, as part of his NASA research, showed that Sanskrit is the most perfectly suited,
unambiguous, language for programming Artificial Intelligence.
Jain mathematicians (6th-7th century BCE) have the distinction of being a bridge between the Vedic
Period in mathematics to the so-called Classical Period. They are also credited with extricating
mathematics from religious rituals. The Jains' fascination with large numbers directly led them to
defining infinity into several types.
Pingala (300 to 200 BCE), a well-recognized Jain mathematician, although not strictly a
mathematician but a musical theorist, is credited with first using the Binary numeral system in the
form of short and long syllables, making it similar to Morse code. He and his contemporary Indian
scholars used the Sanskrit word sunya to refer to zero or void. He is also credited with discovering
the "Pascal triangle" and the binominal coefficient. Basic concepts of the Fibonacci numbers have
also been described by Pingala.
THE DECIMAL SYSTEM SPREADS TO
MUSLIM COUNTRIES
Around the middle of the tenth century, Al-Uqlidisi wrote Kitab al-fusul fi al-hisab al-Hindi, which is the earliest
surviving book that presents the Indian system. In it Al-Uqlidisi argues that this system is of practical value: "Most
arithmeticians are obliged to use it in their work: since it is easy and immediate, requires little memorization,
provides quick answers, and demands little thought ... "
In the fourth part of this book Al-Uqlidisi showed how to modify the methods of calculating with Indian symbols,
which had required a dust board, to methods which could be carried out with pen and paper. This requirement of a
dust board had been an obstacle to the Indian system's acceptance. For example As-Suli, after praising the Indian
system for it's great simplicity, wrote in the first half of the tenth century: "Official scribes nevertheless avoid using
[the Indian system] because it requires equipment [like a dust board] and they consider that a system that requires
nothing but the members of the body is more secure and more fitting to the dignity of a leader." Al-Uqlidisi's work is
therefore important in attempting to remove one of the obstacles to acceptance of the Indian nine symbols. It is
also historically important as it is the earliest known text offering a direct treatment of decimal fractions.
Another reference to the transmission of Indian numerals is found in the work of Al-Qifti's Chronology of the Scholars
written around the end of the 12th century. This publication quotes much earlier sources.
It was not simply that the Arabs took over the Indian number system. Rather different number systems were used
simultaneously in the Arabic world over a long period of time. For example there were at least three different types
of arithmetic used in Arab countries in the eleventh century:
1 - A system derived from counting on the fingers with the numerals written entirely in words—this finger-reckoning
arithmetic was the system used by the business community
2 - The sexagesimal system with numerals denoted by letters of the Arabic alphabet
3 - The arithmetic of the Indian numerals and fractions with the decimal place-value system.
Persian author Mohammed ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi wrote a book, often claimed to be the first Arabic
text written including the rules of arithmetic for the decimal number system, called Kitab al Jabr
wa'l-Muqabala (Rules of Restoring and Equating) dating from about 825 AD.
Although the original Arabic text is lost, a twelfth century Latin translation, Algoritmi de numero
Indorum (in English Al-Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning), gave rise to the word 'algorithm'
deriving from his name in the title. Furthermore, from the Arabic title of the original book, Kitab al
Jabr w'al-Muqabala, we derive our modern word 'algebra.'
"The imam and emir of the believers, al-Ma'mun, encouraged me to write a concise work on the
calculations al-jabr and al-muqabala, confined to a pleasant and interesting art of calculation,
which people constantly have need of for their inheritances, their wills, their judgements and their
transactions, and in all the things they have to do together, notably, the measurement of land, the
digging of canals, geometry and other things of that kind."
Al-Khwarizmi developed this numerical system further with quadratic equations, algebra, etc. —
enabling science, mathematics and astronomy in Islamic countries to develop dramatically.
However, on the other side of the Mediterranean, Christian Europe doggedly continued with the
awkward Roman numerals for centuries.
HISTORY OF INFINITY
The earliest known conception of mathematical infinity appears in the Yajur Veda, an ancient Indian script, which
at one point states, "If you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, still what remains is infinity."
Infinity was a popular topic of philosophical study among the Jain mathematicians c. 400 BC. They distinguished
between five types of infinity: infinite in one and two directions, infinite in area, infinite everywhere, and infinite
perpetually.
Aristotle defined the traditional Western notion of mathematical infinity. He distinguished between actual infinity
and potential infinity—the general consensus being that only the latter had true value. Galileo Galilei's Two New
Sciences discussed the idea of one-to-one correspondences between infinite sets. But the next major advance in
the theory was made by Georg Cantor; in 1895 he published a book about his new set theory, introducing, among
other things, transfinite numbers and formulating the continuum hypothesis.
In the 1960s, Abraham Robinson showed how infinitely large and infinitesimal numbers can be rigorously defined
and used to develop the field of nonstandard analysis. The system of hyperreal numbers represents a rigorous
method of treating the ideas about infinite and infinitesimal numbers that had been used casually by
mathematicians, scientists, and engineers ever since the invention of infinitesimal calculus by Newton and Leibniz.
A modern geometrical version of infinity is given by projective geometry, which introduces "ideal points at infinity",
one for each spatial direction. Each family of parallel lines in a given direction is postulated to converge to the
corresponding ideal point. This is closely related to the idea of vanishing points in perspective drawing.
HISTORY OF PI
The existence of transcendental numbers was first established by Liouville (1844,
1851). Hermite proved in 1873 that e is transcendental and Lindemann proved in 1882
that π is transcendental. Finally, Cantor showed that the set of all real numbers is
uncountably infinite but the set of all algebraic numbers is countably infinite, so there
is an uncountably infinite number of transcendental numbers.
The best-known approximations to π dating before the common era were accurate to
two decimal places; this was improved upon in Chinese mathematics in particular by
the mid-first millennium, to an accuracy of seven decimal places. After this, no further
progress was made until the late medieval period.
Some Egyptologists have claimed that the ancient Egyptians used an approximation
of π as 22/7 from as early as the Old Kingdom. This claim has met with skepticism.
The earliest written approximations of π are found in Egypt and Babylon, both within
one percent of the true value. In Babylon, a clay tablet dated 1900–1600 BC has a
geometrical statement that, by implication, treats π as 25/8 = 3.125. In Egypt,
the Rhind Papyrus, dated around 1650 BC but copied from a document dated to
1850 BC, has a formula for the area of a circle that treats π as (16/9) 2 ≈ 3.1605.
Astronomical calculations in the Shatapatha Brahmana (ca. 4th century BC) use a
fractional approximation of 339/108 ≈ 3.139 (an accuracy of 9×10 −4).Other Indian
sources by about 150 BC treat π as √10 ≈ 3.1622.
HISTORY OF GOLDEN RATIO
It appears that the Egyptians may have used both pi and phi in the design of the Great
Pyramids. The Greeks are thought by some to have based the design of the Parthenon
on this proportion, but this is subject to some conjecture.
Phidias (500 BC – 432 BC), a Greek sculptor and mathematician, studied phi and applied
it to the design of sculptures for the Parthenon.
Plato (circa 428 BC – 347 BC), in his views on natural science and cosmology presented
in his “Timaeus,” considered the golden section to be the most binding of all
mathematical relationships and the key to the physics of the cosmos.
Euclid (365 BC – 300 BC), in “Elements,” referred to dividing a line at the 0.6180399…
point as “dividing a line in the extreme and mean ratio.” This later gave rise to the use
of the term mean in the golden mean. He also linked this number to the construction
of a pentagram.
Leonardo Fibonacci, an Italian born in 1175 AD discovered the unusual properties of the
numerical series that now bears his name, but it’s not certain that he even realized its
connection to phi and the Golden Mean. His most notable contribution to mathematics
was a work known as Liber Abaci, which became a pivotal influence in adoption by the
Europeans of the Arabic decimal system of counting over Roman numerals.
Leonardo Da Vinci provided illustrations for a dissertation published by Luca Pacioli in
1509 entitled “De Divina Proportione”, (perhaps the earliest reference in literature to
another of its names, the “Divine Proportion.” This book contains drawings made by
Leonardo da Vinci of the five Platonic solids.
The Renaissance artists used the Golden Mean extensively in their paintings and
sculptures to achieve balance and beauty. Leonardo Da Vinci, for instance, used it to
define all the fundamental proportions of his painting of “The Last Supper,” from the
dimensions of the table at which Christ and the disciples sat to the proportions of the
walls and windows in the background.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), discoverer of the elliptical nature of the orbits of the
planets around the sun, also made mention of the “Divine Proportion,” saying this
about it:“Geometry has two great treasures: one is the theorem of Pythagoras; the
other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to
a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel.”
It is believed that Martin Ohm (1792–1872) was the first person to use the term
“golden” to describe the golden ratio. to use the term. In 1815, he published “Die reine
Elementar-Mathematik” (The Pure Elementary Mathematics). This book is famed for
containing the first known usage of the term “goldener schnitt” (golden section).
MODERN NUMBER SYSTEMS
In our modern society, almost everything uses the Hindu-Arabic number system, which
we ascribe to theHindus of more than a millenia ago. We are quite happy with it, and
the number base of ten works fine and there is even a correlation between it and the
number of fingers on our two hands. Yet, there are an exceeding amount of
calculations performed in our society in three other bases. These calculations are
performed by computers and they do not count on their circuits, or they would have to
use a very large number base. They prefer calculations in base 2, as a number can then
be represented easily by switching circuits on and off. Many computations can also
easily be made by switching the right circuits and this makes for a great model of
arithmetic calculation for a computer. It doesn't work great for humans though. We
have a hard time reading long sequences of 1's and 0's, so people who are “forced” to
work with computers, known as programmers, prefer to deal with numbers in base 8
and 16. Base 10 is often also available, but base 8 and 16 are good to work with since
they require only 3 or 4 bits of information each (000-111 and 0000-1111 respectively).
This is not of great importance to most humans, but programmers have to be somewhat
proficient with these bases as well, as a lot of documentation will use them and many
computations performed on a computer are more easily expressed in base 8 or 16.
Thankyouu!
