Babylonian numerals



         


Numeral systems

Arabic numerals
Armenian numerals
Babylonian numerals
Chinese numerals
Greek numerals
Hebrew numerals
Indian numerals
Japanese numerals
Maya numerals
Roman numerals
Thai numerals

Numeral system


The Babylonians used a base-60 (or sexagesimal) positional numeral system borrowed from the Sumerians.

A common theory is that sixty was chosen due to its prime factorization 2*2*3*5 which makes it divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30. Integers and fractions were represented identically - a radix point was not written but rather made clear by context.

Sexagesimals still survive to this day, in the form of degrees, minutes, and seconds in trigonometry and the measurement of time.

[Top]




  View Live Article   This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License