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Why the Arabic numbers look the way they do
I was copied the very interesting factoid and audio-visual presentation below by Frank A. Tucker the other day. I’ll bet that like me, many of you didn’t know this angle to the numbers story.
Enjoy! (April 28, 2012)
How the numerals 0 - 9 got their shape
Do you know why numbers look like they do? Someone, at some point in time, had to create their shapes and meaning.
Watch this short presentation and then you will know how our Arabic numbers were originally created a very long time ago and what logic the people that created them used to determine their shapes. It is really very simple and quite creative!
You have to admire the intelligence of a person or of the people that created something so simple and perfect that it has lasted for thousands and thousands of years and will probably never change!
When the presentation gets to the number “seven” you will notice that the “7” has a line through the middle of it. That was the way the Arabic “7” was originally written, and in Europe and certain other areas they still write the “7” that way. Also, in the military, they commonly write it that way. The nine has a kind of curly tail on it that has been reduced, for the most part nowadays, to a simple curve, but the logic involved still applies.
Now, click on the Powerpoint presentation below for the genesis of the Arabic numbers. (To move to the next slide in the presentation, simply click the indicated numbers each time.)
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