Dear colleagues: I learned only recently that the introduction of indo-arabic digits (1, 2, 3...) in western Europe was due to Fibonacci, the mathematician form Pisa, end of the 12th century only! He learned about it travelling to Syria and North Africa...
This implies that, in western Europe, up to early 13?? one could not make easily an addition or a subtraction : with roman digits, how would you compute e.g. MCDXLIII minus CCLIV ? People in business had to use tables! Hence my question: in Hebrew, where each letter has a number attached to it, how did people compute before the introduction of the indo-arabic notation? and when did the latter take place? Thanks. Shoshanah Shoshanah Seidman Africana Monographic Cataloger Faculty Liaison, Program for Jewish Studies, Northwestern University Library 847-467-2914
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