A Brief Introduction to Arabic Numerals

From the Neolithic period to the Sumerians, from ninth-century Baghdad to Muslim Spain, Eleanor Robson traces the extraordinary development of numerate culture in the Middle East. The invention of abstract maths in Babylonia paved the way for more sophisticated astronomy in the Middle East, and the region's developments of mental arithmetic were adopted in scientific communities throughout the world. Even the accelerated development of cities was due to the numerate system in the Middle East. And of course, without the Indo-Arabic number system (which replaced Roman numerals), modern science and computing wouldn't be possible.