COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, SCIENCE AND EDUCATION

PASSLEY GARDENS, P.O. BOX 170

PORT ANTONION P.O., PORTLAND

FACULTY OF SCIENCE

History on The Different Types of Number Systems

MT100SEB: Foundation Mathematics

Name: Emily Fowler

ID #: 2017160932

Lecturer:

Due date: October 19, 2022

 Table of Contents

Introduction

Primitive and Prehistoric Number System

Egyptian Number System

Sumerian and Babylonian Number System

Chinese Number System

Roman Number System

Mayan Number System

 Introduction

In a narrow, yet highly unspecific sense, a number system is a way in which humans

represent numbers. Many often, very different number systems have been employed by many

different cultures and civilizations throughout the ages, and there still exists a wide variety of

them even today, in our comparatively global society. Some of these include the Egyptian

number system, the Babylonian number system and etc. This project serves the purpose of

summarizing the history of different number systems.

 Primitive and Prehistoric Number Systems

Primitive and Prehistoric number systems are systems that have been developed when

there has been some need to express magnitudes. Examples of these are what is known as

body-count, the “bundle-of-sticks” method, tally sticks, 2-count, and neo-2-count. These

systems have been the beginning of counting in almost every civilization.

Examples:

1. Body counting- Body parts are associated with a given quantity and by touching

them, the given quantity is inferred. It can be as limited to the ten fingers or as

advanced as upwards of forty different parts of the body

2. Tally sticks- A tally stick is simply a

piece of wood in which notches have

been made, representing some quantity.

The Egyptian Number System

 The first signs of the Egyptian hieroglyphic number system date to around 3000 B.C.E. It

uses 10 as a radix, thus it is a decimal system. The hieroglyphic form, “Egyptian

Hieroglyphic Numerals” uses symbols for powers of ten, relying on repetition for other

numbers. As the Egyptians wrote from right to left, the largest power of ten appears to the

right of the other numerals. There is, however, no possibility for misinterpretation, as it is a

purely additive system in which the number is read out by adding the numerals constituting it.

Egyptian Hieroglyphic Numerals

To make up the number 3,244, for example, thirteen symbols were required: three "thousand"

symbols, two "hundred" symbols, four "ten" symbols, and four "unit" symbols. The numbers

appeared thus:

As can easily be seen, adding numeral hieroglyphs is easy. Fractions to the ancient Egyptians

2
were limited to unit fractions (with the exception of the frequently used  and less frequently
3

3 1
used ). A unit fraction is of the form  where n is an integer and these were represented in
4 n
numeral hieroglyphs by placing the symbol representing a "mouth", which meant "part",

above the number. Here are some examples:

  

Another number system, which the Egyptians used after the invention of writing on papyrus,

was composed of hieratic numerals. These numerals allowed numbers to be written in a far

more compact form yet using the system required many more symbols to be memorised.

Egyptian Hieratic Numerals

With this system numbers could be formed of a few symbols. For example, here is one way

the Egyptians wrote 2765 in hieratic numerals

here is a second way of writing 2765 in hieratic numerals with the order reversed

 The Sumerian and Babylonian Number System

The Sumerians lived in the regions of the lower Tigris and Euphrates valleys around 3000

B.C.E. Later on, as the city of Babylon grew, power was shifted upstream and the Sumerians

became the Babylonians. Both the Sumerians and the Babylonian used 60 as its number base,

known as a sexagesimal system. Their number systems are quite the same, differing only in

their symbols of notation and some small additions to aid in more advanced calculations.

Why the Sumerians/Babylonians chose 60 as their number base is still unknown. Perhaps the

most likely explanation is its divisibility by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30. It is by far

the largest base ever used in a number system of historical relevance.

Sumerian Numeral System

The Babylonians used a slightly different form, known as cuneiform. It uses only two

symbols, with one and sixty sharing the same.

Babylonian Cuneiform Numerals

For example, 1,57,46,40 in Babylonian numerals can be written as
 The Chinese Number System

The Chinese number system dates back to around 2500 B.C.E. and has changed little over

the years. It has number words for 1 through 9 and for various powers of ten, much like

English. Their way of forming larger numbers is also much the same as it is done in English,

where each number is attached to a given multiple of ten, e.g., hundred, thousand, and so on.

The system is, however, not a positional system, so words can be spoken in any order without

changing the meaning of the number as a whole.

Chinese Numerals

0 zero  
1 one  
2 two  
3 three  
4 four  
5 five  
6 six  
 
7 seven  
8 eight  
9 nine  
10 ten  
100 one hundred  
1000 one thousand  
10000 ten thousand  

For example, the number 75 is written in Chinese using the characters 7, 10, and 5 or 

. In Chinese you need to say that you have 7 “tens” first, the 7 tens are how 70 is
represented. Once you have the tens place in Chinese, you can finish writing the number with

the character for 5.

How would you write 893?

893 is written in Chinese as 8 hundreds, 9 tens, and 3.

This is how 893 is written:   .

 
 The Roman Number System

The Roman number system came into use at the time around the beginning of the common

era, i.e., ~0 C.E. It is a decimal system and not a place-value system. As a side note, the

Romans did not use the system of subtracting quantities just below the larger one for writing

numerals, e.g., IV for 4. This was a later invention, long after the fall of the Roman empire.

Furthermore, a common misconception is that the Romans did not have numerals beyond one

thousand. They did, they actually had a special symbol for multiples of 100,000, though it

only came into use in a later stage of the civilization.

Roman Numerals

For example, to convert 1984 to Roman Numerals, we can write 1984 as 1000+900+80+4

Then 1000=M, 900=CM, 80=LXXX and 4=IV

Hence, 1984 in Roman Letters is MCMLXXXIV

 The Mayan Number System

Around 400 C.E. the Maya Indians develop their number system in conjunction with growing

interest in the calendar. The number system was based on the number 20, known as a

vigesimal system, with 5 as an intermediate base. The system included three symbols for

numbers 1, 5, and 0. They did not have a symbol for their base, but they did have one for

zero, hence their system was also a place-value system.

Mayan numbers

For example:
 References

[Boyer] Boyer, C.B. “Fundamental Steps in the Development of Numeration”, Isis, 35, 157–

158