Origin+of+the+Decimal+System

For history this week I looked into the history of the decimal system.

The earliest known users of decimals were the Babylonians, ancient China, medieval Arabia and Renaissance Europe. The Babylonians decimal system was based on the number 60.

Italian/French mathematician Francois Viete was the first one to suggest the use of a number system based on the number 10. However, it was Simon Stevin from the Netherlands who began making common people familiar with decimals through his book //De Thiende (The Tenth)//. He showed decimal places this way:


 * Modern notation for pi || 3.1416 ||
 * Stevin wrote || 3 (0) 1 (1) 4(2) 1(3) 6(4) ||
 * or || [[image:http://extranet.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/DSME/decimals/SLIMversion/backinfo/images/01.gif width="88" height="24" align="middle"]] ||
 * This notation shows the number is || [[image:http://extranet.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/DSME/decimals/SLIMversion/backinfo/images/3to10etc.gif width="205" height="32" align="middle"]] ||
 * which is the same as || [[image:http://extranet.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/DSME/decimals/SLIMversion/backinfo/images/3to1etc.gif width="200" height="25" align="middle"]] ||

John Napier, from Scotland, used decimals that mirror today's when he developed logarithms to use in certain calculations.

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