Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sabbath Before Sinai Message-ID: Date: 11 Jun 91 03:39:53 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of California, San Diego Lines: 37 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) writes: + +Note that "52" only has that property with Arabic numbering. Not sure what +numbering systems other people used, but 52 doesn't have that property with +roman numerals, for instance... :-) I looked in to this a little bit on Saturday, and found that the Babelonian method of numbering would in fact lead quite easily to the side sum. There was 'ones' gliph, and a 'Tens' Gliph, as well as others. The number was represented as 5 tens gliphs, and 2 ones gliphs, for a total of 7 gliphs. The reference I used also said that certain sequences were not used due to what the author called 'unlucky' significance. An example is, 19 was represented as 20 minus 1, rather than 1 ten and 9 ones. The reason given was that the 19 day of the month was 'unlucky' since it was the 49 day from the first day previous of the previous month(note the side sum of 49 would be 13, don't know if that's significant). A different rational, my own conjecture, would be that 1 ten and 9 ones is more consumptive of the writing surface than the notation for 20 - 1. Fractions or multiples of 60 were 'implicit' in this notation and one has to know the context to determine if one is reading 1/60 or 1*60, the 'number' being written as 1 2 3 could mean 1*3600+2*60+3 or 2*60 + 3 + 1/60. Gaps were used to indicate 'missing' powers, and occasionally a '0' was used to indicate a 'missing' power (although there is no indication of using what we use in terms of 'positional' notation with Zero). > > - - - - - - - - >Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@rpi.edu or gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu -- John Clark jclark@ucsd.edu