| History of Computing Technologies, by M.R. Williams |
[Dec. 4th, 2003|04:49 pm] |
first unsuccessful attempts Arabic->European
The first attempt to introduce this new form (Arabic) of notaion was made by Leonardo of Pisa (aka Fibonacci). ... at the time, Pisa was one of the great trading cities in Italy, and it had connections all through the Mediterranian area. His father was the head of one of Pisa's overseas custom houses, in Bugia on the coast of North Africa. Fibonacci... had a first-class opportunity to observe the methods of the Arabs. ... He visited Egypt, Syria, Greece and France, where he took pains to inquire into local sys. of arithm. 1202 Liber Abaci to explain the Arabic system of numerals and computation. Massive tome for its day (459 pages) difficult to copy; scientific - difficult to understand. ... the efforts of F. were of little success... p.22
conditions for success. problem/solution
The fact that Arabic was completely different from any Eur. language was a great bar to the dissemination of Arabic scientific ideas. ...to learn Arabic it was necessary travel in Arabic-speaking country (dangerous). Problem partially solved in 1085 Alphonso VI recaptured Toledo from the Moors (A.-speaking). The majority of translators came from this population. p.22
spread of knowledge. "for dummies"
The two main works which spread the knowledge : Carmen de Algorismo (The Poem of Algorism. only 284 lines long. easily copied.) by Alexander De Villa Dei (1220) and Algorismus Vulgaris (Common Algorism. only 4000 words long) by John of Halifax (aka Sacrobosco) 1250. based on Al Khowarizmi. ...designed for use in the Eu. universities and were not meant to be complete explanations; rather ..gave the basics, so that a lecturer could explain it to his students. Carmen was difficult to follow (!!!) 'cos t'was written in hexameter verse. Despite (? LOL) this ...very popular, copied, translated into English, French, Icelandic. Part of its popularity due to A. de Villa Dei, who taught in Paris, was alread well known for a Latin Grammar, which was widely used. ... Sacrbosco also taught in Paris, was well known for a work on astronomy. p 23.
The switch from the additive Roman numerals to the positional (hindu-arabic) system came slowly over centuries. It was not easy for the Eu.ns to understand the use of the zero. (??? why it became understandable then?) p. 25
...attitude of some people who thought that the knowledge to be kept for a select few... p. 25
by 1375 the Hindu-Ar. numerals had a firm hold on Europe. p. 25
resistance
...was a great deal of resistance... In 1299 Florence issued an ordinance which prohibited the use of H-A numerals, 'cos they were very easy to alter or forge, e.g. 0 to 6, or 9. The merchnants already had tricks to prevent this sort of thing with Roman numerals; e.g. XII written as Xij. ... as late as 1594 the merchnants of Antwerp were warned not to use them in contracts or bank drafts. p. 26
This hanging onto the old methods of notation was caused, not by a lack of knowledge of the new, but by the fear that , without a complete understanding of the system, something might go wrong. This type of fear is seldom seen today... ( !!! right! LOL). p. 27
In 1673 John Wallis from Oxford wrote to John Collins and admitted that he had doubts about writing sqrt(12) as 2sqrt(3), 'cos no one had ever done it that way before and, thoug he knew it to be the same value, he "durst not without precedent, ... introduce a new way of notation." p. 27
Books produced a few years, or even a few miles, apart would use different characters for at least some of the numerals.
It was the invention of the printing press which standardized them into the forms we now know (!!!) p. 27
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