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10

Fun with Numbers

3 comments, 200 views, posted 1:00 am 21/07/2012 in History by Quaektem
Quaektem has 12861 posts, 1579 threads, 387 points, location: James Cameron doesn't do what James Cameron does for James Cameron...

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 phonecian numbers?

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

Given the source I am not sure how historically accurate this is... but it was an interesting theory none the less

Extra Points Given by:

mohit_117 (5), djskitzy (5)

Comments

0
7:01 am 21/07/2012

djskitzy

I read this years ago, but hey that's no proof of it's accuracy....

2
2:13 pm 21/07/2012

HariSeldon

There is no proof of it's accuracy because it is pure and obvious bullshit. That is not the reason for the characters' shape. Nor for that matter are the shapes used to make it sound plausible even accurate.

1,2, and 3 all evolved from horizontal lines. The shapes changed as time went by, usually for speed purposes. The lines started becoming curves and joining together to bring us the modern shapes.

the other numbers were too high to evolve from horizontal lines. Still the evolved from various shapes, none of which has anything to do with angles

0
7:39 pm 21/07/2012

evolution

Yeah, it's complete rubbish.

The glyphs for the modern European numerals can be traced back to the ancient Indians (especially the Gupta Empire), and to some extent also the Arabs and the Chinese. It has absolutely nothing to do with angles.

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