0 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science
Number theoretical properties like fraction expressions and positional systems post date counting by millenia. They were not considered at all. The Maya had a system which would sometimes have 20 symbols in a position and sometimes 5. Perhaps this was convenient for expressing 365.
It's a convenient backsplanation to talk about things we want like fractions, but early peoples primarily cared about counting.
Comment by mfb- at 25/07/2024 at 16:38 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'd love to see your explanation why no one came up with e.g. a base 7, 11 or 13 system.
Wikipedia finds[1] 24, 20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4 (and 27[2]).