Jump to content

Numeral system

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Numeral systems by culture
Hindu–Arabic numerals
Western Arabic
Eastern Arabic
Khmer
Indian family
Brahmi
Thai
East Asian numerals
Chinese
Suzhou
Counting rods
Japanese
Korean 
Alphabetic numerals
Abjad
Armenian
Cyrillic
Ge'ez
Hebrew
Greek (Ionian)
Āryabhaṭa
 
Other systems
Attic
Babylonian
Coptic
Egyptian
Etruscan
Mayan
Roman
Urnfield
List of numeral system topics
Positional systems by base
Decimal (10)
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64
1, 3, 9, 12, 20, 24, 30, 36, 60, more…
Scoring beads, a numeral system for counting in a game

A numeral system (also called a number system or system of numeration) is a way to write numbers. Roman numerals and tally marks are examples. "11" usually means eleven, but if the numeral system is binary, then "11" means three.

A numeral is a way to represent a number. It may be a symbol or a word in a natural language, or a group of them. Numerals differ from numbers just as the word "rock" differs from a real rock. The symbols "11", "eleven" and "XI" are all numerals that represent the same number. Babylonian numerals, Greek numerals and Roman numerals are among the systems that were long used, before the Hindu–Arabic numeral system largely replaced them.

Various symbols are used as numerals to make numbers. A system with base 10 (the common decimal system), normally uses the symbols 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Each of the numbers 0 to 9 can be written as one symbol, 0 ... 9. To count past 9, symbols have to be put together. 10 can be seen as 1 in the tens' place and 0 in the ones' place, or as 1 times 101 plus 0 times 100. With a base of 2, only the symbols 0 and 1 are used. 10base 2 is therefore 1 times 21 plus 0 times 20. This is the same as 2, in the base 10 notation.

For bases bigger than 10, capital letters are used as symbols. For example, the hexadecimal numeral system (base 16) uses the numerical digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F.

Today, base 10 is the most commonly used system. Computers use binary and people who study computers often use octal and hexadecimal numeral systems. Ancient Sumer used sexagesimal (base 60). New world used base 20.

Most electronic calculations are done in binary (base 2), but most people do calculations in decimal (base ten) or duodecimal.

Hypercomplex numbers

[change | change source]

Mathematician Robert P. C. de Marrais lists different hypercomplex number systems belonging to different dimensions.[1]

Name Dimension Symbol
real numbers 1 = 20
complex numbers 2 = 21
quaternions 4 = 22
octonions 8 = 23
sedenions 16 = 24
pathions 32 = 25
chingons 64 = 26
routons 128 = 27
voudons 256 = 28
2n-ions 2n

References

[change | change source]
  1. de Marrais, Robert P. C. (2002). "Flying Higher Than a Box-Kite: Kite-Chain Middens, Sand Mandalas, and Zero-Divisor Patterns in the 2n-ions Beyond the Sedenions". arXiv:math/0207003. doi:10.48550/arXiv.math/0207003.

Other websites

[change | change source]
English Wiktionary
English Wiktionary
The English Wiktionary has a dictionary definition (meanings of a word) for: numeration