Number System Quotes

The Greeks according to official history used letters for hundreds, for tens, and ones.It was extremely complicated. If you talk about Archimedes, you should use Greek letters.

The name was supposed to be 'Googol,' which is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. It was before the Google spellchecker existed.

Imaginary numbers are a fine and wonderful refuge of the divine spirit almost an amphibian between being and non-being.

There might be a hidden structure in pi that we simply haven't discovered.

The concept of zero is attributed to the Hindus. The Hindus were also the first to use zero in the way it is used today.

From the three, you then use one to make eight ones. You add those ones to the three, and you get one-three base eight, or, in other words, In base ten you have eleven, and you take away seven. And seven from eleven is four. Now go back to the sixty-fours, you're left with two.

Arithmetic starts with the integers and proceeds by successively enlarging the number system by rational and negative numbers, irrational numbers, etc... But the next quite logical step after the reals, namely the introduction of infinitesimals, has simply been omitted. I think, in coming centuries it will be considered a great oddity in the history of mathematics that the first exact theory of infinitesimals was developed 300 years after the invention of the differential calculus.

Math is my favorite subject. It's the universal language. I like the fact that wherever you go in the whole world, two plus two will still be four.

Do you think Arabs are dumb? They gave us our numbers. Try doing long division with Roman numerals.

... the laws of physics and of logic ... the number system ... the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.

The role of science is to be systematic, to be accurate, to be orderly, but it certainly is not to imply that the aggregated, successful hypotheses of the past have the kind of truth that goes into a number system.

Can it be, that the Greek grammarians invented their dual number for the particular benefit of twins?

Base eight is just like base ten really, if you're missing two fingers.