Subject: Re: [HM] The Universal History of Numbers
From: Don Cook (tdctdc@surfsouth.com)
Date: Wed Jun 07 2000 - 19:06:37 EDT
The edition I have is published by John Wiley and sons in 2000. It has an
index. I sent the following letter on May 27: I'm pleased that others have
commented on the lack of some references. It's a fun book on the order and
validity of E.T. Bell's "Men of Mathematics".
The most amazing apect of the book is that it is over 600 pages long and
costs less than $40.00. I stared in the middle with Roman numerals, so it
doesn't make much difference where you begin, Ifrah postulates that I, V, X
come from tally marks. There is little evidence for this, but Ifrah shows
that the same symbols arise in other cultures whose numbers evolve from
tally sticks. I was mainly interested in the use of IV rather than IIII for
4. I suspect that it is more of a device to save space and becomes popular
after printing. Ifrah, without stating any reference says that it is early.
The bibliography is quite large.
Peace,
Don
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu Jun 08 2000 - 11:53:13 EDT