Tuesday, February 20, 2007

It's all about the numbers

Have you ever wondered as to how the numbers that we know so well came to be. There are primarily two major forms of number system - Roman (I, II, III, IV, ....) and Arabic (1,2,3,4,....). The Arabic number system as known so, as they were popularized by the Arabs.

While the Roman numbers are easy to understand, as evident by their usage, have we ever thought to wonder as to why 1 = one, 2 = two, 3 = three, etc., or for that matter the logic behind them?

Well the fact is that it's all about the angles !! As is evident from the image inset, the naming revolves around the number of angles which each contains when written in their older forms.

1 has one angle, 2 has two angles, 3 has three angles and so on till 9 having nine angles. Zero being a circle has no angles! I have depicted the angles with circles. Click on the image for a better look.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Coooool! Thanks for the education, as promised, even long distance:-)

Anonymous said...

Hey, this is interesting!!!

Kailash said...

Zero is a polygon with infinite number if sides, therefore infinite number of angles.

Kailash said...

Number *of* sides .. I mean

Ramesh Ramakrishnan said...

Aha - thanks KT

Anonymous said...

good one flower.........