Should we revitalize the Maya numerals?

DOI10.1007/S00283-013-9388-2MaRDI QIDQ393482zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors W. Bietenholz

Publication date 23 January 2014

Published in The Mathematical Intelligencer (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-013-9388-2

zbMATH Keywords

divisibility testslong count calendarMayanumeration systems

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics of the indigenous cultures of the Americas (01A12) Radix representation; digital problems (11A63)

Review text

This article presents divisibility tests, along the line of ``casting out nines, in various numeration systems: base-10, -12, and -20, as well as the modified base-20 scheme used in the Mayan Long Count calendar. Since the latter incorporates factors of 3, besides 2 and 5, it often allows simpler tests than base-10. The author gives such qualitative comparisons a spurious precision by assigning to each numeration system a score, given to four (decimal) significant figures.

Recommendations

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1047976
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• Mayan, Aztec and Incan numeral system

Cites work

• A note on the irregularity of graphs
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Cited in

(2)

• A possible solution to the Mayan calendar enigma
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1479829 (Why is no real title available?)

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