this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (7 children)

How did they get mixed? I see 1 in arabic and 2 and 3 in Hindu. Is there a good place to start reading or watching about this in your opinion? If not, I'm just gonna YouTube the history of numbers and see where I land

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (4 children)

IIRC Hindus invented this number system (with glyphs for 0-9), and then the Arabs starting using it. Eventually the west started using them and credited the Arabs.

As for how they are written, everyone used the same shapes, and then they probably just ended up changing over time (“Hmm…how do I write that number again? Oh whatever I’ll just make it up”)

Feel free to do your own research though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

IIRC Hindus didn't have a "proper" 0, and Arabs did, which I guess is the reason why they got the credit

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Zero was (in its modern form) invented in India. It’s pretty fundamental to the concept of Hindu-Arabic numerals too: it’s how we represent numbers such as 10, 100, and so on.

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