Counting and numbers and arithmetic from all over the world and all time periods. ( )

HISTORIA UNIVERSAL DE LAS CIFRAS

¿ De dónde vienen las cifras? ¿quién ha inventado
el cero? ¿por qué el 13 se identifica tanto
con la buena como con la mala suerte? son
algunas de las preguntas que dieron origen a
esta HISTORIA UNIVERSAL DE LAS CIFRAS.

Estas preguntas fueron formuladas por los alumnos
de Gcorges Ifrah, quien en su deseo de dar una
respuesta fiable a estas y a muchas otras interrogantes
surgidas en sus clases de matemáticas, decidió
dedicarse de lleno a investigar el origen y significado
de los números en las más diversas culturas que
componen hoy el complejo mapa de la Humanidad,
así como los sistemas numéricos y de cálculo,
desde los más rudimentarios hasta los más sofisticados,
desde el abaco hasta el ordenador.

El resultado de esa investigación es este fascinante y
excepcional libro, que dirigido a un público amplio,
narra, con asombrosa claridad y sencillez, la
sorprendente historia de los números, de su
simbología, de sus representaciones gráficas... al
tiempo que descubre la estrecha relación que desde
siempre ha existido entre el mundo de las cifras y otras
manifestaciones del pensamiento humano, como la
filosofía, las religiones o la mitología.

Ilustrada con más de 16,000 dibujos, tablas y
representaciones caligráficas, la HISTORİA UNIVERSAL
DE LAS CIFRAS es, en resumen, un inédito
acercamiento a la historia de la inteligencia humana.

Very detailed and concentrated text. Many illustrations and examples. A good read, but a hard read.

Man, what a great find. I've been wanting a collection like this, chock-full of illustrations, for some time now. And, bonus, it's a big book (the 2000 edition) but printed on this great thick but lightweight paper, so despite its size it's a light book.

In the first chapter, all the numeric writing systems are gathered and compared (with the glaring exception of Asia, though the Mayan somewhat represents it). ( )

Born speaking Hebrew Arabic and French in Morocco, and widely-traveled, Georges Ifrah provides a comprehensive tour of how "numbers" were used by people across expanses of time, place and culture. He shows that the Hand is a computer-calculator [xiv], and was used as such by the Cave Painting inhabitants of Europe. [xiii]

Ifrah also explains many numerical oddities. Why do we still use Roman Numerals (especially in dates, e.g. film credit crawls)? If we have ten fingers, why do clocks have 60 minute hours? Why did Lincoln count by 20s in his Gettysburg Address? How did the Inca count using Quipu sticks and knots on a string?

Our "Arabic" numeral forms only migrated from southern India about 1,500 years ago. And now we see the numerals shared by humanity.

"For all our differences, we are united by this great system of symbols." Ifrah explains:

"By their universality...figures bear witness, better than the babel of languages, to the underlying unity of human culture. When we consider them, our awareness of the prodigious and fruitful diversity of societies and histories gives way to a feeling of almost absolute continuity. Though they are only one part of human history, they bind it together, sum it up, and run through it from one end to the other, like that red thread which, according to Goethe, ran through all the ropes of the British navy, so that one could not cut a piece from any of them without recognizing that it belonged to the Crown." [xvi]

"Figures are profoundly human". ( )