THE LIFE OF SCIENCE 



enabled us to use it exactly as the older ones, without further 

 ado. It seems that the Mayas knew the use of it, but they did 

 not think of the decimal system. When, then, did the latter, that 

 is, the combination of the three ideas, originate? 



It is very probable that it originated in India sometime about 

 the fifth or sixth century, if not earlier. The system was already 

 known in Western Syria about 662. The Moslems who trans- 

 mitted Greek, Hindu and Iranian knowledge to the Christian 

 West introduced also the new numerals (which are often called 

 Arabic numerals because of that). Yet it took the West a very 

 long time to understand and to assimilate them. The earliest coin 

 bearing the Hindu numerals is one with an Arabic legend struck 

 in 1138 to commemorate the reign of Roger of Sicily. But the 

 conditions obtaining in Sicily, where Byzantines, Latins and 

 Moslems met on an equal footing, were too exceptional to be 

 representative of Western Europe. However, by the end of the 

 twelfth century a small elite was apparently familiar with the new 

 system. Their formal and final introduction was due to Leonardo 

 of Pisa, who published in 1202 a book containing a very clear 

 explanation of the Hindu numerals and of the best ways of using 

 them. 



Mind you, more than six centuries had already passed since 

 this discovery and as far as Europe was concerned, this was only 

 the beginning, the first satisfactory and successful introduction 

 of the subject. At the close of the thirteenth century the bankers 

 of Florence were forbidden to use these numerals and we may 

 gather that they actually used them, but in the face of a strong 

 opposition. The only alternative was the clumsy Roman notation 

 which offered a means of writing numbers in a manner unequiv- 

 ocal but very unclear; it was altogether out of the question to 

 use them for any but the very simplest reckonings. One might say 

 that the Roman numerals could be used solely because they were 

 not used: all calculations were actually made by some kind of 

 abacus or calculating table, and only the results, partial or final, 



