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Chinese numerals. In 1899 a major discovery was made at the archaeological site at the village of Xiao dun in the An-yang district of Henan province. Thousands of bones and tortoise shells were discovered there which had been inscribed with ancient Chinese characters. The site had been the capital of the kings of the Late Shang dynasty (this ...
Rod Numerals and the Counting Board The second dominant form of enumeration dates from around 300 BC and was in wide use by AD 300. Numbers were denoted by patterns known as zongs and hengs: zongs represent units, 100’s, 10000’s, etc., while hengs were for 10’s, 1000’s, 100000’s, etc.
The Chinese independently developed a real number system that includes significantly large and negative numbers, more than one numeral system (binary and decimal), algebra, geometry, number theory and trigonometry.
The Chinese, working largely in isolation, are next: ~2500 B.C.E. Greek mathematicians become a reckoned—in more than one sense of the word—force around 500 B.C.E.
Among the greatest mathematicians of ancient China was Liu Hui, who produced a detailed commentary on the “Nine Chapters” in 263 CE, was one of the first mathematicians known to leave roots unevaluated, giving more exact results instead of approximations.
Number systems have progressed from the use of fingers and tally marks, perhaps more than 40,000 years ago, to the use of sets of glyphs able to represent any conceivable number efficiently. The earliest known unambiguous notations for numbers emerged in Mesopotamia about 5000 or 6000 years ago.
The Chinese rod numerals were introduced not later than the Warring States period (480 B.C. to 221 B.C.) at a time before paper was invented, when the means of writing were fraught with difficulties.
