Decimal - History

History

Many ancient cultures calculated from early on with numerals based on ten: Egyptian hieroglyphs, in evidence since around 3000 BC, used a purely decimal system, just as the Cretan hieroglyphs (ca. 1625−1500 BC) of the Minoans whose numerals are closely based on the Egyptian model. The decimal system was handed down to the consecutive Bronze Age cultures of Greece, including Linear A (ca. 18th century BC−1450 BC) and Linear B (ca. 1375−1200 BC) — the number system of classical Greece also used powers of ten, including, like the Roman numerals did, an intermediate base of 5. Notably, the polymath Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC) invented a decimal positional system in his Sand Reckoner which was based on 108 and later led the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss to lament what heights science would have already reached in his days if Archimedes had fully realized the potential of his ingenious discovery. The Hittites hieroglyphs (since 15th century BC), just like the Egyptian and early numerals in Greece, was strictly decimal.

The Egyptian hieratic numerals, the Greek alphabet numerals, the Roman numerals, the Chinese numerals and early Indian Brahmi numerals are all non-positional decimal systems, and required large numbers of symbols. For instance, Egyptian numerals used different symbols for 10, 20, through 90, 100, 200, through 900, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, to 10,000.