Posted on 09/15/2003 11:25:58 AM PDT by blam
Greeks 'borrowed Egyptian numbers'
By Paul Rincon
BBC Science
The astronomers, physicists and mathematicians of ancient Greece were true innovators.
Ancient Greeks used letters and extra symbols to represent digits
But one thing it seems the ancient Greeks did not invent was the counting system on which many of their greatest thinkers based their pioneering calculations.
New research suggests the Greeks borrowed their system known as alphabetic numerals from the Egyptians, and did not develop it themselves as was long believed.
Greek alphabetic numerals were favoured by the mathematician and physicist Archimedes, the scientific philosopher Aristotle and the mathematician Euclid, amongst others.
Trade explosion
An analysis by Dr Stephen Chrisomalis of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, showed striking similarities between Greek alphabetic numerals and Egyptian demotic numerals, used in Egypt from the late 8th Century BC until around AD 450.
Both systems use nine signs in each "base" so that individual units are counted 1-9, tens are counted 10-90 and so on. Both systems also lack a symbol for zero.
Dr Chrisomalis proposes that an explosion in trade between Greece and Egypt after 600 BC led to the system being adopted by the Greeks.
Greek merchants may have seen the demotic system in use in Egypt and adapted it for their own purposes.
"We know there was an enormous amount of contact between the Greeks and Egyptians at this time," Dr Chrisomalis told BBC News Online.
'Plausible' theory
Professor David Joyce, a mathematician at Clark University in Worcester, US, said he had not examined Dr Chrisomalis' research, but thought the link was plausible.
"Egyptians used hieratic and, later, demotic script where the multiple symbols looked more like single symbols," said Professor Joyce.
"Instead of seven vertical strokes, a particular squiggle was used. That's the same scheme used in the Greek alphabetic numerals."
Traditionally, the system is thought to have been developed by Greeks in western Asia Minor, in modern day Turkey.
Between 475 BC and 325 BC, alphabetic numerals fell out of use in favour of a system of written numbers known as acrophonic numerals.
But from the late 4th Century BC onwards, alphabetic numerals became the preferred system throughout the Greek-speaking world.
They were used until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th Century.
The research is to be published in the journal Antiquity.
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"Reminds me of an old book called the "cantocal of Lebowitz" (forgive the spelling) following a nuclear war only one holy document survives. Turns out to be some slubs grocery shopping list. But the whole worlds religion becomes based on it."
That sure beats "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure".....:]
Yes everything old is new again.
There are so many holes in the article that is is just another bbc tabloid fluff piece.
next week, the ancient sumerians invented algore and thus the internet...
(ps: canocal of lebowitz, good book)
They had to have a word for zero even if they lacked a symbol since the numbers were used by commerce and the books had to balance, i.e., zero out. The Roman numerals were also Greek letter symbols, the ones they didn't use in Latin.
"since the numbers were used by commerce"
I thought zero meant there was nothing in the till ;-)
Bookkeeper is the second oldest profession. The books must balance. :)
It's classic. One of the few Sci-Fi books I retained in my home library.
FYI: The "Cantocal of Liebowitz" was originally discovered by Offender of the Faith, Zarathud The Incorrigible, Hard Nosed Hermit of Medievil Europe and Apostole of Catastrophe.
(This tidbit offered to increase the Discordia of your Psyche.).......:^)
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