60 +15, o 615) writen thus
<¥
However, ths expression could also just as easly be read 5
at <<
oe 05 esa 41056065)
leis rater a if the Romans had adopted the rl of poston and base
6, and ad then represented expressions such as "103° 1°" (= 36,181")
by the Roman numerals X It, which they could eay have confused
with XL CY" 2°19), Xi GO" 3°), and soon. Seibes in Babylon
and Susa were wel aware ofthe problem and tried to avoid it by eving
dear space between one sexagesimal oxde ad te next. Soin the sae
text a the one from which Fig. 1350 is anscibed, we ind the number
[i010] 10 6 +10), represented 3s
<<
bo
‘The lea separation ofthe wo chevron eliminates any ambiguity with
the epresentation ofthe number 20.
In another tablet fom Sus the number 1:1: 12](=1 60+ 1x 60+
1piewriten
T <0
inich de clear separation ofthe efiost wedge serves to dstingush the
‘expression from
1)
Insome instances seibes used specials to matkthe separation ofthe
orders ofmagitue. We find double oblique wedges, o twin chetons one
on op ofthe other illing this role of order separator:
£ ok ohh
ea sme amps fom a matenata bet xara tus
TK a
1x60.
cae)
« KITT
oo] s:acas am
Sins
(en0ndot ea na ALA OD
‘The gn of eparaion makes the fst number above quite distin from
‘the representation of 1; 10+ 18; 45] (1x 60° +28 60+ 4) and forthe
‘same reason the second number above cannot be mistaken for [20 +3: 13;
2133] (=23 60+ 13 «60+ 21 x 604 3)
‘This dificuty actually masked a much mare serious defclency ofthe
‘system =the absence of er, For more than fiten centuries, Babylonian
mathematicians and astonomers worked without a concept of orsign for
ero, and that must have hampered them a great dea.
In any numeral sytem using the rule of postion, tere comes pint
‘where a speci signi needed to epesent units that are missing rom the
number tobe represented. Fr instance, inorder to wet the number te
sing (as we nw do) a decimal postioal notation itis easy enough to
plac the sig for 1 n second position, so 3 o make it sgn one unit of
the higher (cima) order ~but how do we signify that thi sgn is indeed
cnn by eee qe btm een in second positon if we have nothing to write down to mean that hee
nothing in theft poston? Tei easy ~you put“ in second positon,
and "Fines postin, ste the guarantee that thes indeed in second
peston, Bu if all you have fr tenis a“1" and hen nothing... The
e.mail fo ans ene tf epi fe
‘ea ny Seep i
problem is obviously acute. Sinilny, to write a number tke “sven
hunted and tw ina deinal postions ste, you can easly pt 3°
in third position anda "2" in fist postion, but i nt easy to tell that,
thee. aithmetieal “nothing” between ther theres indeed ohio
pt beeen them,
Iebecame cla in the long rum that such nothing had tobe represented
by somthing if confusion in numeri calelaton was to be avoided. The
something that means nothing, rather the sgn that sigs theabeence
fui in given ode of magritdei, ¢would one day be represented
by, ze,
“The leaned men af Babylon had no concep of zea around 1200 BCE
‘The proocan be sen on a table fom Uruk (Louse AO 17254 which gives
the following solution:
“Caleaate he square of TT mupeation able The product,
supplied is 4 35], so we enter 35 in the mide column (since we have
changed our order of magnitudes) and inthe leftmost column, the one
reserved for mips of 3,60
‘Soe can now rub ou the fom the mliplicand, and find that there
‘nothing let on the right ofthe tablet, Theft stage ofthe operation i
complete,
; po
y iar «
“The rightmost column now has 8 cheions in it Since this more than
the 6 cherons which make aunt ofthe next order, we rub out 6 of hem
nd “cry” them into a wedge which we eter in the idle columa,
leovng 2 cherons inthe units alum,
‘So we now have chevron and 8 wedges altogether inthe 6s column.
“Thesum ofthese being no pester than 60, we simply rub out he numerals
inthe colon and place hem with the mara sighing 8, the sm of
4 ehevtons (4 10) and 8 wedges (2 8) And a5 there is oly 4 in the
column of the third order, the esl of the multiplication is now fully
‘eezed onthe abacus
{41:32} 25 = [4 4820)
+ 3.500 +48 60420» 17300)
‘The Babylonians ako had tables of squares, square eoos (ig 13.70),
cube roots reciprocals, exponents, ee for ll mbes from 11058
which enabled far more complex cleltions to be performed. For
instance, division was done by using the reciprocal table eto divide one
umber by another, you mule it by its reciprocal
Al ths goes 10 show the great intelectual sophistication of the
mathematician and astronomers of Mesopotamia from the begining of
‘he second millennium BCE,
sina)
Biba
1.70. Ppt far nt 80 BE fu Np 10 aa Ef
eg ino aba jo ci C8 ad
THE BABYLONIAN LEGACY
‘The abstract system ofthe learned men of Babylon has had» power
influence over the scent worl from att down tothe present
‘rom at lest the second century BCE, Greek astronomers used the
Babylonian tem for expressing the negative powers of 60. However,
instead of wing cuneiform numeral, the Greeks used an adapted version
oftheir wm alphabetic numerals. For example, they wrote expressions Ike
(0° 2835" and O17” 4 in he folowing way: o a
o] ERLE] faa ia
ee le| ie gle] [eseaslesy
ft sree Arab snd Jewish astronomers alo flowed the Gree borrowing ofthe
Babylonian system, which they “translated” ito thee own alphabetic
numeral, ving the llowing Forms fo the illustrative nubs shown in
pt ow 4 z .
ns nee
Ror Meet
‘Thus the lered Babylonian system has come down to us and
perpetuated in the way we express measures af time in hours, minutes 2nd
seconds andin the way we count tsandangls, despite the strict decimal
nature ofthe res of our numerals and mirc weights and meas. tis
Tagely de tothe Arabs thatthe stem was tansmited to moder tines.
YS = — -
que 2peee ane fy waving 2-001 andre]
Wey ee se mwe
a wpe ape yar ess
In some periods aid in some lds, the stibes of Sus and Babylon were
ch given to playing cryptic guns with names. Some ofthese games
Involved numerical tanepoion, thats toa the we of omer expres
slons in ie of words oF deograms, generally based on some coherent
‘syste of eoding’ oon complex numerloial symbolism.
1 I
if EF 43) (Se
sel tet] rey a
Fate] [etote] [aml] [|
wel] Tels! [eel o| Teel
2[ ate mt rle] |Seel wl |
wi rl +} opal cowl >| jets] |
= Tool! bool of a] || ele] [fate
wel to) fet] || pete] law
el al betel = a
SOI Weta] [ae be
{ml 4] tayo] || Sef Bel
[el at sy poms | on | me
wel el a me oer De!
a |
Cape] |S fa] |r| as Sn
Pele] fella fee | | om
wT | bes] [meee | ||
> w| «| [tr >| | a
a | Fiat] | hl
eye] | Peto ery, |
is] |e] [Pete] |ernt > | >»
ses] [FL aa || ropa
Br st o| (Coa! |b ay on
Peal [PPsts) | rm
aed | CV tac
ih sm Al 3690 2, se bye ae ‘One ofthe inscriptions of the name of King Sargon I of Assyria (722-
705 BCE) provides an example of numerical tanspeston. Recording the
onstruction ofthe reat fortress of Khorsabad (Du Sarukn), Sargon sys
gave its wall he dimensions of (3,50 +3600 + 3.500 + 3,600 + 60
+500 +600 + 60 +36 +2) cubits [.. 15.280 cubits] corresponding
tothe sound of my name [Clinderinscription, ine 65}
However, his assertion has nt yet yielded all ts secret: we cannot
reconstitute the coding syst by which the name was transposed into
rer fram this single example alone
Another typeof aumbername games shown in tablet fom Uruk of
the Seleucid period. At the end ofthe Exalation of lta (published by
.Thuresu Dangn in 1914) the sib indicates that he tablet belongs
someone caled
«Th ag o mw +
®
tA
t
*
by
K
a
RAR AR Ra
‘Te numbers fm 100 wre wien by ag the symbols for
the oes units ve te symbol for 1, and he huss mere
steno sina totes (211) nermee unbers te
Ca etn combing te tie and mate mess
Therese ite tine ey eats now amps
thechinse sem nasoundedons yet ple Tae nates
20. 30and wer fen writen equ eens he mba
iis qate inl du tothe fat hat he we of mais etd
esl thre mae te wel ny inp TA Kn of eee. casanpuyayaen
Totton ara tough its was cet ned for phological 7 2 Wim cpa fiche sidering
‘coun oa man re een: Fal
=e SW RH |
GI4GAROAH GAG |Z
Pb RR HOB PPA E
BRK Ow HRC
De FE REN RE,
RCo rae mie |S)
ence THE SPREAD OF WRITING THROUGHOUT
THE FAR EAST
‘Ove all the centuries, the structure of the Chinese characters has not
fundamentally changed at al. The Chinese language is split into many
regional dialects, and the characters are pronounced diereatly by the
people of Manchuria, of Hunan, of Peking of Canton, oof Singapore.
erywhere, however, the characters have kept the same meanings
and eveyone can understand then.
For example the word for “eit” is pronounced in Mandarin and is
writen witha character which we shall denote by “A. In Cantonese,
this character is pronounced like Ack but the Cantonese word for
“eat is pronounced sk and ise i represented by a character which
‘we sall denote by “BY. Nevertheless, ll educated Chinese ~ even i
in ther dialect the word for “et” is pronounced neither ch nor it~
ready understand the characters "A" and", which both mean “eat”
(V- Alton (1870)
Chinese weting i therfore, in the words of B. Kalen, a visual
Esperanto: "The fact hat people who are unable to communicate by the
spoken word can understand each othe when ech writes his ownlanguage
in Chines characters has ays been sen as one ofthe mos remarkable
features ofthis graphical stem [V, Alleton 1970] Wecan easly under
stand why itis hat some of Chinas neighbours have adopted this writing
system fr thei own languages.
‘This ast mas especially the case for the erate people of Anam (now
Viena). They considered thatthe Chinese language was superior wo thelr
own, richer and mare complete and they adopted the Chinese characters
4% they stood but progounced them in their own way (called "Sino
Annamite’). This gave se to the Vietamese wetng called chi’ nlm
(meaning “eter writing’,
‘The Chinese numerals were ao borrowed atthe same time, and were
read as flows inthe Sino-Annamite pronunciation (5 dm i) which
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