Ah, Arabic numerals. Brings back fond memories of listening to some motormouth in Egypt rattle off numbers for me to copy for hours at a time. I'm sure crypto has advanced since the 1970s 😉 As a liberal arts major I am in favor of eliminating all numerals from the curriculum. They're just confusing to people.And hard to work into writing rules. You write "ten" not "10." But do you write "100" or "one-hundred?" Does it change in dialogue? Arabic numerals always look weird to me in dialogue, unless tthey're like really, really big ones. But you'd write "a million," not "1,000,000," but never "sixty-two-million-four-hundred-thousand-and..." Well, I don't even know how that goes. See what I mean? I'm sure style manuals have their opinions. Ask me, no, they should not be taught in schools. Romans managed fine without them and they look really impressive. Vee-One "VI" might look like 6, though. I suppose there are two sides. FL CCCXX would be awesome "Charlie Charlie Charlie X-Ray X-Ray.".But it is hard to figure out when movies were made in the short time they give you in the credits. Finally, if Arabic numerals are so great, how come Arabs don't use them?

3 hours ago, Tim_Capps said:

Finally, if Arabic numerals are so great, how come Arabs don't use them?

They DO use them, although they use different glyphs for them. 😉

wahhid, ithnain, talith, 'rba, khamsa... Well, I can't even remember how to count to ten, but I bet I'd recognize them if I heard them. I do know "bingo fuel" was "Kuwait;" fire! was "pusk!" which is actually Russian, I think, and pilots were courteous enough to "waggling my wings" before "pusk" and P3s have a heck of ECM system and can dive like a son-of-a-gun if they have to 😉  Back in the day, guys would fly out of Rota Spain and sometimes things were exciting. Arabs all used ground control intercept, and MiG-21s have pretty short legs but were fast and there's probably never been a bad MiG in its day. Yes, my friends, yet another war story, I admit that I was unheroically safe and only got to listen to the fun and games. The Army spent nearly two years training me in two different Arabic dialects, and I spent most of my time at my duty station checking the fluid levels in jeeps at the motor pool in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. Obviously, I was a deterrent, though, because Kentucky was never invaded by Egypt. If they had, I would have put my CI-st Screaming Aquilarum OJT to good use turning the RDF hoops from a gama goat. No one will know what that is without Googling it. Might as well be talking about being a cavalry scout except people at least know what a horse is.

On 12/16/2021 at 5:26 PM, Beardyman said:

only small amount of smart ones will rule them all...

Recently in Poland they did survey if humans lived same time as dinosaurs - 28% said 'yes', 14% had no clue ...

Evidently, 42% had no clue.

Our numerals are not of Arab but Indian origin. They came to Europe thanks to great Arab mathematicians who borrowed them from their Indian colleagues.  The background of the Arab mathematical culture also goes back to the integration of the Mesopotamiam  mathematics when Arabs invaded what is called now Iraq. I should also factor in the Greek- Arab interactions but another time. 

Besides there are different Arab numerals, ours are of the Western Arabic type (Maghreb). Last thing,  Roman numerals are still used for solar dials and fancy watches in our days 😄.

Except to show off at a Christmas party, knowing that has no direct use in any human activity not related to the history of mathematics or the civilizational interaction of Europe and the East from the 8th to 15th century. it is not shameful not to know it as I doubt it is taught in high schools.  How people would know it ? So easy to mock...

But this not the real purpose of the story. You have to dig a little further deep.

Fox links its piece to an article of a woke British newspaper which quotes the CEO of the company who paid for the poll as saying that it is "the saddest and funniest testament to American bigotry we've ever seen in our data."

These pseudo-scientific polls are engineered not to help understanding our society but to call out the so-called bigotry of the ill-washed in the name of their ideology. 

Ideology but politics too. The teaching of Arabic in primary schools is a hot political issue in a country like France with a massive maghrebine population and any such polls would get a strong negative feedback too.  
 

21 hours ago, n4gix said:

They DO use them, although they use different glyphs for them. 😉

😉

21 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Except to show off at a Christmas party, knowing that has no direct use in any human activity

It has a direct use in my crossword puzzles. Today's clue was "With which to write three Roman numerals? (6)" and the answer was PENCIL.

Also "About five hundred birds in large groups (6)". The answer was CROWDS.

Edited December 22, 20214 yr by dmwalker

59 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Our numerals are not of Arab but Indian origin. They came to Europe thanks to great Arab mathematicians who borrowed them from their Indian colleagues.

I believe I mentioned upstream about how our numbering glyphs originated in India. Note also that the image I posted was of the Eastern Arabic glyphs, as it is the system I'm most familiar with due to my having lived in Iran for many years.

Just now, n4gix said:

I believe I mentioned upstream about how our numbering glyphs originated in India. Note also that the image I posted was of the Eastern Arabic glyphs, as it is the system I'm most familiar with due to my having lived in Iran for many years.

I envy you to have lived in Iran, specially if it was before the present regime. The traces of a great civilization are still here. One funny thing is that MSFS has modelled Cyrus the Great's tomb. I duly flew there to pay my respect 😄. Did you see it in real ?

15 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

The traces of a great civilization are still here

I always wanted to visit Persepolis but there was so much to see in the other countries in the region, I just couldn't manage it.

Edited December 22, 20214 yr by dmwalker

2 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

I envy you to have lived in Iran, specially if it was before the present regime. The traces of a great civilization are still here. One funny thing is that MSFS has modelled Cyrus the Great's tomb. I duly flew there to pay my respect 😄. Did you see it in real ?

Yes, yes I did see it! My parents and I made many visits to all of the historical sites, including Persepolis, as well as the Tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadae. We also visited Naqsh-i-Rustam, in the cliffs of which are carved tombs of many Persian Shahs.

We lived in Iran from 1960 to 1968, so yes we fortunately weren't caught up in the fall of the Reza Shah.

1 hour ago, n4gix said:

Yes, yes I did see it! My parents and I made many visits to all of the historical sites, including Persepolis, as well as the Tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadae. We also visited Naqsh-i-Rustam, in the cliffs of which are carved tombs of many Persian Shahs.

We lived in Iran from 1960 to 1968, so yes we fortunately weren't caught up in the fall of the Reza Shah.

Lucky you. When I was old enough, I couldn't.

It is a wonder that  flight simulation allows us to fly in these regions now. Just flew the Milviz Porter from  Kerman airport south to a small lake in the mountains. This sim can be incredible of realism... 

Way back when (1962 or so), I had a Army-Sergeant friend who was a student at the Army Language School (now defunct) in Monterey, California. He studied Arabic. A really grueling 39-week course. When he graduated, the Army, in their inimitable way, stationed him in Korea.

Edited December 22, 20214 yr by W2DR

Sorry, this little tidbit has nothing to with Arabic numbers but more in line with Doug's last comment.  Going through Navy schools, the last thing you want to do is piss off your instructor or flunk the course.  Usually, they will immediately have you transferred to some miserable duty somewhere.  I heard of 2 guys in earlier classes who got kicked out.  One was assigned flag raising duties at Disneyland and the other got Embassy duty in Sweden.  😳🤔

On 12/22/2021 at 6:43 AM, Tim_Capps said:

wahhid, ithnain, talith, 'rba, khamsa... Well, I can't even remember how to count to ten, but I bet I'd recognize them if I heard them.

In Farsi (Persian), the numbers 1 through 10 are:

1. yek یک
2. do دو
3. se سه
4. chahâr چهار
5. panj پنج
6. shesh شش
7. haft هفت
8. hasht هشت
9. noh نه
10. dah ده

In Arabic numbers are spoken very differently even though the glyphs are the same!

0 (٠)(ṣifr) صفر

1 (١)(wāḥid) واحد

2 (٢)(iṯnān) إثنان

3 (٣)(ṯālaṯa) ثلاثة

4 (٤)(ārba’a) أربعة

5 (٥)(ḫamsa) خمسة

6 (٦)(sitta) ستة

7 (٧)(sab’a) سبعة

8 (٨)(ṯamāniya) ثمانية

9 (٩)(tis’a) تسعة

10 (١٠)(‘ashra) عشرة