Who was the first to identify base numbers (or radix)?

Question

Who was the person who invented (or discovered, whichever you want to call it) base numbers and worked with them? Euclid comes to mind, but I don't think that's right. Thanks.

Answer 1

Al-Kwarizmi neither discovered numbers, nor did he discover zero. He did write about both and the decimal number system, but both zero and the decimal system were obtained from the Indian mathematicians that visited the court at Baghdad.

The Babylonians used a mixed base 10, base 6 system that we usually describe as a base 60 system. The Egyptians and the Greeks used a cyphered system that has aspects of a base system, but not quite. The ancient chinese has a base 10 system for calculation with sticks. It is thought that the Indian system was partly obtained from China.

Euclid most certainly did not use a base 10 system, nor did he consider other bases.

As for using two different base systems at the same time (say decimal and binary), it is clear that some of the arabic astronomers had to use both base 10 and base 60, but they probably did so for different calculations (astronomy was often done base 60 because of the degree-minute-second description of angles). I don't know of a specific example, though.

Answer 2

some people believe that the Inbians were the first to discover numbers . but the correct is that the Arabian scientist " Abou Moosa
Al- khawarezmy" who lived at the mid centuries
is the first ne to discover the system of numbers . He explained in his book " Algebra "
-which he had writtin - the system he had discover . He was also the discoverer of the
(zero) . He founded by this book the Algebra sciance . The Zero discovery was an extraordinary thing in the world's history .
The number system he had discovered still being used at the present time & no one or no society can do without Numbers of
Al-Khawarezmy
good luck

Answer 3

Yep. I believe it started with those brilliant Greek mathematicians. However, Babylonians also used bases. The first radix system they used was base 20.

Jay_h:
A lot of things are not clear-cut but the Greeks were the first to document and place everything in correct perspective. The rest is all speculation.

Answer 4

Eh, it's not quite so clear-cut.

Different civilizations have used positional number systems with different bases -- for instance the ancient Babylonians used a base-60 system. Western mathematics only began using a positional number system in the 1200's, when Leonardo of Pisa, a.k.a. "Fibonacci," caught on to the idea of a decimal system (already popular amongst the Arab world, who had picked it up from India) and introduced it in one of his books.

But as for when mathematicians of the West first began exploring working with numbers in different bases, and converting from one to another, that's another matter, though Gottfried Leibniz first published a fully developed binary number system in 1705, so it can't be any later than that.

Binary notation, as well as octal and hexadecimal, are widely used today in the computing world, and there are also many people who advocate switching from decimal to "dozenal" (base 12) because it would be easier for our kids to learn, and because counting by twelves and multiplies of twelve is already used in so many practical applications anyway. You can find more info on dozenal systems at the link below.

Hope that helps!

Answer 5

in addition of all information above, Indian mathematicians was the first one who used numbers as1, 2, 3, and so on. in Greek, the numbers were written as I, II, III, IV, ...

Al- khawarezmy used the knowledge of indian mathematicians and wrote the first book which was about addition and subtraction and the basic rules of algebra. he was not the first one who invent the numbere but he was the first one who used 0 ( a small circle) to indicate zero. he was a persian mathematicans but he wrote his book in arabic with the name Algebra (or the gabr, which i think in English means "the reduction")

Answer 6

Pythagoras