For those of us in the northern Hemisphere the Autumn Equinox is just behind us, and our hugely successful Summer Adventure is coming to an end.
“Boo”, I hear you say. But what better opportunity to look back at the methods that made the central American Mayans (in whose wild forests the Professor’s Summer Adventure is set) such pioneers of maths?
This page gives a nice introduction to ‘Mayan Math’. The Mayan mathematics system was way ahead of its time, and certainly more advanced than the arcane maths system Europeans inherited from Rome. Mayan maths was ahead of its time in part because (as the Mayan Math page describes):
[It]Â was able to represent very large numbers by using only 3 symbols: a dot, a bar, and a symbol for zero…
Like our numbering system, [the Mayans] used place values to expand this system to allow the expression of very large values. Their system has two significant differences from the system we use: 1) the place values are arranged vertically, and 2) they use a base 20, or vigesimal, system.
Base 20, you say? That’s a lot of fingers! Of course, they could have been counting on their toes, too. Base 10 is the system we use today, but there have been other mathematical systems designed around different base numbers.
Using the Mayan system, you only carry when you get to 20 (not 10) and the place values look quite different. Instead of Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, etc (multiplying by 10 each time) we multiply by 20 each time to give Units, Twenties, Four Hundreds, Eight Thousands, etc. Confused? The number ’562,677′ would be written ’3.10.6.13.17′.
Using this system for expressing numbers has two advantages:
1) large numbers can be easily expressed, so long time periods can be recorded;
2) simple arithmetic can be easily accomplished, even without the need for literacy among the population. In the marketplace sticks and pebbles, small bones and cacao beans, or other items readily at hand can be used to express the numbers in the same way that they are expressed on the monuments or in the books of the upper classes. Simple additions can be performed by simply combining 2 or more sets of symbols (within their same set).
Fascinating stuff, but if all this is a little much on a Tuesday morning, you get started with your Mayan Maths by learning the Mayan numbers to twenty, using the chart below:
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