History of Numbers and the Roman Numerals

Before formal numbers, humans used ______, making a single mark for each item counted.

unary systems

Tally markings used the following:

1. Notching bones (Ishango bone)

2. Wood

3. Stone

The ancient Egyptians developed a _______ but it was very different from ours because it didn't use place value. Instead, they used hieroglyphs for different powers of 10.

base-10 system

The Babylonians passed down a massive legacy: they used a?

base-60 (sexagesimal) system.

Perhaps the most famous historical system, Roman numerals are a subtractive/additive base-10 system using the following Latin letters:

1. I - 1

2. V - 5

3. X - 10

4. L - 50

5. C - 100

6. D - 500

7. M - 1000

In the roman numeral system, what does the horizontal line mean?

It is an overline or vinculum which means the value of the number is multiplied by 1000

Reasons why the Roman Numeral system is no longer used:

1. No place value

2. No zero

3. The Hindu-Arabic System was simply engineered for mathematics/arithmetic

The system we use today—the decimal system (base-10) with positional value and a zero—was invented in India between the 1st and 4th centuries CE.

The Hindu-Arabic Numeral System

The Hindu-Arabic Numeral System adopted by Persian and Arab mathematicians like _______ from whose name we get the word algorithm and eventually introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages, largely popularized by the mathematician _____ It revolutionized the world because it made complex arithmetic accessible to anyone with a pen and paper.

1. Al-Khwarizmi

2. Fibonacci