This math scares me

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <98qnq0$qc2$1 at panix3.panix.com>, Aahz Maruch <aahz at panix.com> wrote:
>In article <HR4s6.877$lz1.73512 at ruti.visi.com>,
>Grant Edwards <grante at visi.com> wrote:
>>
>>One step further is base-60, which is still used for many
>>things.  Time and angular measurement for example is partially
>>a base-60 system.  I believe that one or more of the ancient
>>Aztecs/Incans/Mayans used a base-60 number system.
>
>Paging Ivan Van Laningham.....

Ivan isn't reading c.l.py these days, but he sent me an e-mail response
that he said I could post:

We get base 60 from the Babylonians, who got it from the Sumerians. 
Base 60 is *much* more useful for time/date/astronomical calculations
than any other.  One of the projects in my datebook is a base60 package,
but if anyone else writes one I'll be happy to use it;-)

Aztecs and Mayans used base 20, expanded from an earlier base 10 system,
which appears to have grown from an earlier base 5.

Counting in Mayan civilization was, um, weird.  Check Lounsbury, Floyd
G., ``Maya Numeration, Computation, and Calendrical Astronomy,'' in
Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed., Charles Coulston Gillespie,
Vol. 15, Supplement 1 (1978), Scribners, New York, 1978.  As a small
example, instead of saying "twenty-three," Mayans would say "three
towards forty."  <g>

The Incans used base ten exclusively, but recorded the numbers in knot
form (on _quipus_).

Many other radices were popular in pre-Conquest America.  Base 3, bases
4, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 20.  Check out Closs, Michael P., ed., Native
American Mathematics, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1986.  Still in
print, in trade paper edition.

<one-towards-the-third-thousand>-ly y'rs,
Ivan;-)
----------------------------------------------
Ivan Van Laningham
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