From Prehistory To The Invention Of The Computer
More than a history of counting and calculating from the caveman to the late twentieth century, this is the story of how the human race has learnt to think logically. The reader is taken through the whole art and science of numeration as it has developed all over the world, from Europe to China, via the Classical World, Mesopotamia, South America and, above all, India and the Arab lands.
We meet those who count to four - anything more is "lots"; we discover the first use in counting of fingers and toes; the metric system based on ten, the binary system without which the computer revolution could not have happened. All the methods, many of the false starts. Not to mention the intriguing question: how did they manage for all those centuries without a zero?
The luminous text is aided at every turn with clear explanatory figures and tables, and is supported by an extensive subject index. Contents include:
- The earliest calculating machine: the hand
- Tally sticks: accounting for beginners
- How the Sumerians did their sums
- Greek and Roman numerals
- The invention of alphabetic numerals
- The achievements of Mayan civilisation
- India and the birth of modern numerals
- Indo-Arabic numerals and how they reached the West
- The final stage of numerical notation.
