2,510
edits
Changes
→Basic notation
The general incremental nature of the symbols can actually be observed in digits 1 through 8: 1 is a line, 2 is essentially two connected lines, 3 is three and four is a square, made up of 4 lines. Then elements are incrementally added up to 8.
The general incremental nature of the symbols can actually be observed in digits 1 through 8: 1 is a line, 2 is essentially two connected lines, 3 is three and four is a square, made up of 4 lines. Then elements are incrementally added up to 8.
While there are special symbols for 72, 144 and 1728, numbers up to 144 can be pretty comfortably written down, using the available twelve digits. One uses a vertical line called "staff" (a literal translation from Mandae) to sum the digits, thus producing a new digit. For instance, if one wishes to write down 14, one can write it as any combination of the two digits, be it 12+2 or 11+3 or 10+4. Different countries tend to adapt several common combinations, and the rule of thumb is two try to use the largest digit. So, in case of 14 it would be more common to represent it by doing 12+2. However, one can also simply put one number after the staff, which would mean that the number is summed by itself, thereby allowing to write down 14 as 7+7:
While there are special symbols for 72, 144 and 1728, numbers up to 144 can be pretty comfortably written down, using the available twelve digits. One uses a vertical line called "staff" (a literal translation from Mandae) to sum the digits, thus producing a new digit. For instance, if one wishes to write down 14, one can write it as any combination of the two digits, be it 12+2 or 11+3 or 10+4. Different countries tend to adapt several common combinations, and the rule of thumb is two try to use the largest digit. So, in case of 14 it would be more common to represent it by doing 12+2. Typically, the smaller number is on top and the larger number is at the bottom. One can also simply put one number after the staff, which would mean that the number is summed by itself, thereby allowing to write down 14 as 7+7:
[[File:Compound numbers.jpg|center]]
[[File:Compound numbers.jpg|center|thumb|The number 14 represented in three different ways: 12+2, 7+7 and 4+10.]]