"Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May" is a poem by Robert Herrick. This poem portrays our existence on earth, and that people age as life goes on, and everything becomes boundless. Herrick here urges people to take advantage of youth and energy while they may! The poem is in the genre of carpe diem, to seize the day.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Arabic Numbers

The numbers we all use (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) are known as " Arabic" numbers to distinguish them from the " Roman Numerals" (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, etc). Actually the Arabs popularized these numbers but they were originally used by the early phonecian traders to count and keep track of their trading accounts.

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

Microsoft Photo Editor 3.0 Picture

Interesting, isn't it?
An ancient Phonecian manuscript explains this and I thought it to be fascinating.

2 comments:

eshda3wa said...

it is interestinh
thankx 4 shareing

Ansam said...

sure thing ;-)

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