Europe does not adopt Arabic numerals

While I agree a total victory is an overstatement you yourself are:
  • glossing over that Roman numerals requires more mental faculties to read since every number involves extra steps of addition to convert than Western Arabic

Why would a Roman convert numbers? They would deal with LXV as LXV. Yes, it would take them a longer because the number itself is longer. But MM is easier to read than 1000. Would you say that Western Arabic was terrible for the French since they say 80 as quatre-vignts? So they have to convert those eight tens into four twenties?

While I agree a total victory is an overstatement you yourself are:
  • overstating the differences in addition/subtraction
Addition is almost as simple as multiplying by 10 in Hindu-Arabic.

XXVI + XXVII is XXXXVVIII = XXXXXIII = LIII

Subtraction is just canceling shared numerals.

XXXVII - XXVI = XI

You literally just remove the shared numerals. It's vastly easier. I'm not overstating anything with the addition or subtraction.

This is the major advantage of the Roman system.

While I agree a total victory is an overstatement you yourself are:
  • overstating the level of abstraction - surely a 1:1 tally of group of units to single symbol is lowering the level not raising it?

I wouldn't think so. III tells me there are three things, because I can see that there are three things there. A single symbol for three takes away the essential threeness of three.

The mayan system is even better at this than the Roman system since they don't have the weird collection letter/numbers, rather they stick with the tallies and positioning.

While I agree a total victory is an overstatement you yourself are:
  • understating the advantages in multiplication/division.

Yeah. Hindu-Arabic division is vastly better. Multiplication isn't easier in Hindu-Arabic but it does take less time and writing.
 
Why would a Roman convert numbers? They would deal with LXV as LXV. Yes, it would take them a longer because the number itself is longer. But MM is easier to read than 1000. Would you say that Western Arabic was terrible for the French since they say 80 as quatre-vignts? So they have to convert those eight tens into four twenties?
I'm talking about converting 36 versus XXXVI into the mental concept of a unit that is 36 things. In Western Arabic numbers it is "three tens plus six" in Roman it is "ten plus ten plus ten plus five plus one". The written Roman numbers thus need more brain power to process since there are more symbols on average per number compared to Western Arabic.
 
For all the people who say that the Arabs never did anything for Western Europe, before getting into some contemporary stuff, I like to start with Mathematics (arithmetic) and Medicine. 3/4 times, this silences them because what they said were out of not knowing any better and not out of malice.
 
Why would a Roman convert numbers? They would deal with LXV as LXV. Yes, it would take them a longer because the number itself is longer. But MM is easier to read than 1000. Would you say that Western Arabic was terrible for the French since they say 80 as quatre-vignts? So they have to convert those eight tens into four twenties?


Addition is almost as simple as multiplying by 10 in Hindu-Arabic.

XXVI + XXVII is XXXXVVIII = XXXXXIII = LIII

Subtraction is just canceling shared numerals.

XXXVII - XXVI = XI

You literally just remove the shared numerals. It's vastly easier. I'm not overstating anything with the addition or subtraction.

This is the major advantage of the Roman system.



I wouldn't think so. III tells me there are three things, because I can see that there are three things there. A single symbol for three takes away the essential threeness of three.

The mayan system is even better at this than the Roman system since they don't have the weird collection letter/numbers, rather they stick with the tallies and positioning.



Yeah. Hindu-Arabic division is vastly better. Multiplication isn't easier in Hindu-Arabic but it does take less time and writing.

In fact I can see the advantage of this system in teaching very young kids. Kids younger than 11 have a hard time with abstractions, it is like the more you explain the less they understand. It is possible that they could learn basic math faster with a system less abstract like the Roman or Mayan.
 
In fact I can see the advantage of this system in teaching very young kids. Kids younger than 11 have a hard time with abstractions, it is like the more you explain the less they understand. It is possible that they could learn basic math faster with a system less abstract like the Roman or Mayan.

That doesn’t stop the issue with teaching more complex math. Sure, young kids perhaps have it easier, but older kids and even adults would almost certainly have it harder with Roman numerals. All you’re really doing is delaying the hard stuff for a later date.

What needs to be understood is that there is a good reason - a really good reason - that numbers invented in India were adopted across the world.
 
That doesn’t stop the issue with teaching more complex math. Sure, young kids perhaps have it easier, but older kids and even adults would almost certainly have it harder with Roman numerals. All you’re really doing is delaying the hard stuff for a later date.

What needs to be understood is that there is a good reason - a really good reason - that numbers invented in India were adopted across the world.

Well, I said that:
In fact I can see the advantage of this system in teaching very young kids.

I didn't say: the "numbers invented in India" are shit and need to be replaced as soon as possible.

That doesn’t stop the issue with teaching more complex math.

Yeah, but I never said that the advantage was in teaching advanced math, I said that the advantage was in the basic years. I was being very specific in limiting the scope of my answer only to the basic math because that is the advantage that I see.

All you’re really doing is delaying the hard stuff for a later date.

That delay is exactly why it would be good, when we reach 9 or 10 years old we have a more mature brain more capable to understand abstractions.

I don't know if it would be better to learn both systems, but I know that it would be possible.
 
I didn't say: the "numbers invented in India" are shit and need to be replaced as soon as possible.

I never said you said that. I just said that there is a reason Arabic numerals spread across the world in the Middle Ages in a time when contact between such distant places was minimal.

And I will also ask, do you have any POD to arrest its rise? No Islam is insufficient, as a Nestorian bishop in Syria referenced Hindu-Arabic numerals before the rise of Islam.
 
I don't think sticking to Greek would have been a problem. Or at least less so than Roman.
And I don't think that European would have stayed with the Roman system forever. If they discover America, when they see the Mayan numeral system, they might take it, as it is a lot more convenient.

Anyway, IMO, the biggest issue isn't the numeral system. What truly made European science advance was the invention of subscript and superscript for the tuples system. Once you have that, you can make algebra with any number of variable you want, your not bound by your alphabet anymore.
However, they will need the 0 at one point or another.
Maya numerals for Western Mathematicans would be mindblowing.
 
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