History
The first true written positional numeral system is considered to be the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. This system was established by the 7th century, but was not yet in its modern form because the use of the digit zero had not yet been widely accepted. Instead of a zero, a space was left in the numeral as a placeholder. The first widely acknowledged use of zero was in 876. Although the original Hindu-Arabic system was very similar to the modern one, even down to the glyphs used to represent digits, the direction of places was reversed, so that place values increased to the right rather than to the left.
By the 13th century, Hindu-Arabic numerals were accepted in European mathematical circles (Fibonacci used them in his Liber Abaci). They began to enter common use in the 15th century. By the end of the 20th century virtually all non-computerized calculations in the world were done with Arabic numerals, which have replaced native numeral systems in most cultures.
Read more about this topic: Numerical Digit
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)