OK, I'll bite, since I did write a book on the subject, after all. :) I think it's a great exercise and combines a historical focus with a good study of the structure of each system.
- If one of the three systems is the Hindu-Arabic system, then point 3 is confusing, because "our base-system" is the Hindu-Arabic system and can't be compared to itself. I understand what you mean (compare H-A to two other systems) but because you keep talking about three systems, it could be confusing. Indeed, probably best to replace "our base-ten system" with "Hindu-Arabic numerals" because of course one of our 'base ten' systems are the English number words, and that is presumably not the comparison you are lookking for. - I'd scrap the word 'ancient' in the intro and point 4. After all, Hindu-Arabic numerals aren't ancient (at least not in the ordinary sense) - I'm not quite sure what you mean by "which parts of those ancient number systems are still in place today". Could you give me an example of what you mean?
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Date: 2009-07-14 12:17 am (UTC)- If one of the three systems is the Hindu-Arabic system, then point 3 is confusing, because "our base-system" is the Hindu-Arabic system and can't be compared to itself. I understand what you mean (compare H-A to two other systems) but because you keep talking about three systems, it could be confusing. Indeed, probably best to replace "our base-ten system" with "Hindu-Arabic numerals" because of course one of our 'base ten' systems are the English number words, and that is presumably not the comparison you are lookking for.
- I'd scrap the word 'ancient' in the intro and point 4. After all, Hindu-Arabic numerals aren't ancient (at least not in the ordinary sense)
- I'm not quite sure what you mean by "which parts of those ancient number systems are still in place today". Could you give me an example of what you mean?