Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Logic Behind the Numbers

Logic Behind the Numbers Have you ever thought Why .......
1 means "One",
and 2 means "Two"?

The Roman numerals are easy to understand but what was the logic behind the Phoenician numbers?
The numbers we all use (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) are known as "Arabic " numbers to distinguish them from the " Roman Numerals " (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, etc).
Actually the Arabs popularized these numbers but they were originally used by the early Phoenician Traders to count and keep track of their trading accounts.It's all about angles !

It's the number of angles. If one writes the numbers down (see below) on a piece of paper in their older forms, one quickly sees why. I have marked the angles with "o"s.
No 1 has one angle.
No 2 has two angles.
No 3 has three angles. etc.
and "O" has no angles

Interesting, isn't it?
An ancient phonecian manuscript explains this and I thought it to be fascinating.

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