I'm really excited about how well one of my new lesson ideas for fifth grade CS is working out.
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“why don’t the ancient ones have a zero?”
twas not invented then, my child
I just added in the cuneiform with the other number systems on a whim, not really thinking about the implications of it not having a zero (really, I forgot that they didn’t have zero it is a base 60 system, They *do* use place value, but with great ambiguity: it’s one of the things that makes translating old numeric tablets difficult.)
This caused many excellent questions!
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@shortstories @futurebird
Why not?The writing system has so many rules and symbols it might be more difficult than Egyptian Hieroglyphics which are more difficult than modern Chinese with it's pictograms
And also more difficult than ancient Greek, ancient Hebrew or any ancient form of any modern language that is based on a ancient dead language
Where the ancient language forms are usually more difficult than the modern forms for the same language
Is why not
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The writing system has so many rules and symbols it might be more difficult than Egyptian Hieroglyphics which are more difficult than modern Chinese with it's pictograms
And also more difficult than ancient Greek, ancient Hebrew or any ancient form of any modern language that is based on a ancient dead language
Where the ancient language forms are usually more difficult than the modern forms for the same language
Is why not
cuneiform numbers aren’t bad at all. though it’s disturbing how they have place value but no zero
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I just added in the cuneiform with the other number systems on a whim, not really thinking about the implications of it not having a zero (really, I forgot that they didn’t have zero it is a base 60 system, They *do* use place value, but with great ambiguity: it’s one of the things that makes translating old numeric tablets difficult.)
This caused many excellent questions!
@futurebird
place value without zero seems almost as confusing as semantic distinctions between tabs and spaces. -
I just added in the cuneiform with the other number systems on a whim, not really thinking about the implications of it not having a zero (really, I forgot that they didn’t have zero it is a base 60 system, They *do* use place value, but with great ambiguity: it’s one of the things that makes translating old numeric tablets difficult.)
This caused many excellent questions!
@futurebird Have you tried balanced systems, e.g. where digits can have values of -5 to 5 (base 11)?
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I just added in the cuneiform with the other number systems on a whim, not really thinking about the implications of it not having a zero (really, I forgot that they didn’t have zero it is a base 60 system, They *do* use place value, but with great ambiguity: it’s one of the things that makes translating old numeric tablets difficult.)
This caused many excellent questions!
@futurebird cool! But don't forget that ancient mesoamerican civilizations like the Maya did have a numeral for zero which is often glossed over in eurocentric histories. I'm not sure exactly when this developed but I think it was around the dawn of the common era.
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@futurebird
place value without zero seems almost as confusing as semantic distinctions between tabs and spaces.@llewelly @futurebird now i'm imagining a system where tabs and spaces are used to designate place value in a system with no zeroes... -
@futurebird Have you tried balanced systems, e.g. where digits can have values of -5 to 5 (base 11)?
no... oh dear.
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@llewelly @futurebird now i'm imagining a system where tabs and spaces are used to designate place value in a system with no zeroes...
@apophis @futurebird @llewelly I mean, worse has been done [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language) ].
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@apophis @futurebird @llewelly I mean, worse has been done [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language) ].
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@futurebird cool! But don't forget that ancient mesoamerican civilizations like the Maya did have a numeral for zero which is often glossed over in eurocentric histories. I'm not sure exactly when this developed but I think it was around the dawn of the common era.
The cuneiform system is VERY old. We are talking 2900BC, so the Maya zero, is much later. But also probably independent of the zero from India.
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@futurebird have you tried to doing long division in hex? it's not easy.
Not messing with that without a big multiplication table at hand.
