Today we use a numbering system based on the Arabic numerals. However, initially they had a slightly different view than the one to which we are accustomed.
Arabic numerals when writing consisted of different straight line segments, and the number of corners of the sign consistent with its value. There is a hypothesis that one of the Arab mathematician offered once to associate a numeric value of the digits with the number of corners in their graphic representation.
If you look at the original writing of Arabic numerals, we can see that:
- 0 doesn't contain a single angle
- 1 digit with one acute angle
- 2 has two acute angle
- 3 contains in its original writing three acute angle and so on up to the nines.
9, respectively, contains nine angles. Bottom intricate tail of this figure just served the purpose to create three additional acute angle.
Today it is difficult for us to see this relationship, due to the fact that over time the corners are creased and in some places rounded. The correct original spelling, for example, the number 3 looks as we write this number during the filling of the index on the mail envelope.
Thus appeared the figures used by the majority of the inhabitants of the planet in the modern world.
The word "figure", incidentally, is also Arabic. It was formed after the modification of the Indian word "sunya". When translated into Arabic began to say as "sir" or "digits". So the word "figure" came into our language, dostawczych we inherited from the Arab mathematicians.
Source:
here
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