Location arithmetic (Latin arithmeticæ localis) is the additive binary numeral systems, which John Napier explored as a computation technique in his treatise Rabdology (1617), both symbolically and on a chessboard-like grid.
Napier's terminology, derived from using the positions of counters on the board to represent numbers, is potentially misleading in current vocabulary because the numbering system is non-positional.
During Napier's time, most of the computations were made on boards with tally-marks or jetons. So, unlike it may be seen by modern reader, his goal was not to use moves of counters on a board to multiply, divide and find square roots, but rather to find a way to compute symbolically, as we learned to do it at school up to a few decade ago.
However, when reproduced on the board, this new technique did not require mental trial-and-error computations nor complex carry memorization (unlike base 10 computations). He was so pleased by his discovery that he said in his preface
- ... it might be well described as more of a lark than a labor, for it carries out addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and the extraction of square roots purely by moving counters from place to place.
Read more about Location Arithmetic: Location Numerals, The Grid, Multiplication, Division
Famous quotes containing the word arithmetic:
“‘Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes,—thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)