Information about Arabic Numerals

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Arabic numerals, known formally as Hindu-Arabic numerals, and also as Indian numerals, Hindu numerals, Western Arabic numerals, European numerals, or Western numerals, are the most common symbolic representation of numbers around the world. They are considered an important milestone in the development of mathematics.

One may distinguish between the positional system involved, algorism (also known as the Hindu-Arabic numeral system), and the glyphs used to portray the numerals used in that system. The glyphs most commonly used in conjunction with the Latin alphabet since Early Modern times are 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.

These numeral glyphs ultimately derive from the Brahmi numerals, which arose in Maurya period India.^[1][2] They were transmitted first to West Asia, where they find mention in the 9th century, and eventually to Europe in the 10th century.^[1] Since knowledge of the numerals reached Europe through the work of Arab and Persian mathematicians and astronomers, the numerals came to be called "Arabic numerals." In the Arabic language itself, the Eastern Arabic numerals are called "Indian numerals," أرقام هندية, (arqam hindiyyah) and a different set of symbols are used as numerals.

History

Origins

Main article: History of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system

The symbols for 1 to 9 in the Hindu-Arabic numeral system evolved from the Brahmi numerals. Buddhist inscriptions from around 300 BC use the symbols which became 1, 4 and 6. One century later, their use of the symbols which became 2, 7 and 9 was recorded.

The first universally accepted inscription containing the use of the 0 glyph is first recorded in the 9th century, in an inscription at Gwalior dated to 870. However, by this time, the use of the glyph had already reached Persia, and is mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's descriptions of Indian numerals. Indian documents on copper plates, with the same symbol for zero in them, dated back as far as the sixth century AD, abound.^[3]



The numeral system came to be known to both the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, whose book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825, and the Arab mathematician Al-Kindi, who wrote four volumes, "On the Use of the Indian Numerals" (Ketab fi Isti'mal al-'Adad al-Hindi) about 830, are principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle-East and the West [1]. In the 10th century, Middle-Eastern mathematicians extended the decimal numeral system to include fractions, as recorded in a treatise by Syrian mathematician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi in 952-953.

In the Arab World—until modern times—the Arabic numeral system was used only by mathematicians. Muslim scientists used the Babylonian numeral system, and merchants used the Abjad numerals. It was not until Fibonacci that the Arabic numeral system was used by a large population.

A distinctive "West Arabic" variant of the symbols begins to emerge in ca. the 10th century in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus, called the ghubar ("sand-table" or "dust-table") numerals.

The first mentions of the numerals in the West are found in the Codex Vigilanus of 976 [2]. From the 980s, Gerbert of Aurillac (later, Pope Silvester II) began to spread knowledge of the numerals in Europe. Gerbert studied in Barcelona in his youth, and he is known to have requested mathematical treatises concerning the astrolabe from Lupitus of Barcelona after he had returned to France.

Adoption in Europe

Al-Khwārizmī, the Persian scientist, wrote in 825 a treatise On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, which was translated into Latin in the 12th century, as Algoritmi de numero Indorum, where "Algoritmi", the translator's rendition of the author's name gave rise to the word algorithm (Latin algorithmus) with a meaning "calculation method".

Fibonacci, an Italian mathematician who had studied in Bejaia (Bougie), Algeria, promoted the Arabic numeral system in Europe with his book Liber Abaci, which was written in 1202, still describing the numerals as "Indian" rather than "Arabic".

"When my father, who had been appointed by his country as public notary in the customs at Bugia acting for the Pisan merchants going there, was in charge, he summoned me to him while I was still a child, and having an eye to usefulness and future convenience, desired me to stay there and receive instruction in the school of accounting. There, when I had been introduced to the art of the Indians' nine symbols through remarkable teaching, knowledge of the art very soon pleased me above all else and I came to understand it.."

The numerals are arranged with their lowest value digit to the right, with higher value positions added to the left. This arrangement was adopted identically into the numerals as used in Europe. The Latin alphabet running from left to right, unlike the Arabic alphabet, this resulted in an inverse arrangement of the place-values relative to the direction of reading.

The European acceptance of the numerals was accelerated by the invention of the printing press, and they became commonly known during the 15th century. Early uses in England include a 1445 inscription on the tower of Heathfield Church, Sussex, a 1448 inscription on a wooden lych-gate of Bray Church, Berkshire, a 1470 inscription on the tomb of the first Earl of Huntly in Elgin Cathedral, and a 1487 inscription on the belfry door at Piddletrenthide church, Dorset. [See G.F. Hill, The Development of Arabic Numerals in Europe for more examples.] By the mid 16th century, they were in common use in most of Europe.[3] Roman numerals remained in use mostly for the notation of years Anno Domini, and for numbers on clockfaces. Sometimes, Roman numerals are still used for enumeration of lists (as an alternative to alphabetical enumeration), and numbering pages in prefatory material in books.

Evolution of symbols

Main articles: Algorism and glyphs used with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system

The numeral system employed, known as Algorism, is positional decimal notation. Various symbol sets are used to represent numbers in the Arabic numeral system, all of which evolved from the Brahmi numerals. The symbols used to represent the system have split into various typographical variants since the Middle Ages:

• The widespread Western "Arabic numerals" used with the Latin alphabet, in the table below labelled "European", descended from the "West Arabic numerals" which were developed in al-Andalus and the Maghreb (There are two typographic styles for rendering European numerals, known as lining figures and text figures).
• The "Arabic-Indic" or "Eastern Arabic numerals" used with the Arabic alphabet, developed primarily in what is now Iraq. A variant of the Eastern Arabic numerals used in Persian and Urdu languages as shown as "East Arabic-Indic".
• The "Devanagari numerals" used with Devanagari and related variants grouped as Indian numerals.

The evolution of the numerals in early Europe is shown on a table created by the French scholar J.E.Montucla in his Histoire de la Mathematique, which was published in 1757:



The Arabic numerals are encoded in ASCII (and Unicode) at positions 48 to 57:

Binary	Dec	Hex	Glyph
0011 0000	48	30	0
0011 0001	49	31	1
0011 0010	50	32	2
0011 0011	51	33	3
0011 0100	52	34	4
0011 0101	53	35	5
0011 0110	54	36	6
0011 0111	55	37	7
0011 1000	56	38	8
0011 1001	57	39	9

See also

• Hindu-Arabic numeral system the Arabic number system is used by the widest number of people
• Chinese numerals
• Japanese numerals
• Roman numerals

References

• History of Counting Systems and Numerals. Retrieved 11 December 2005.
• The Evolution of Numbers. 16 April 2005.
• O'Connor, J. J. and Robertson, E. F. Indian numerals. November 2000.

External links

• Classical Arabic Blog
• History of the Numerals
• Arabic numerals:
• Hindu-Arabic numerals:
• Numeral & Numbers' history and curiosities:
• Gerbert d'Aurillac's early use of Hindu-Arabic numerals at Convergence