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> The manipulation and the written form are fully independent. No, they are related. The optimal written form for a base 10 manipulation system is a base 10 nu

> The manipulation and the written form are fully independent. No, they are related. The optimal written form for a base 10 manipulation system is a base 10 numeral written system. > Before the introduction of Arabic numerals to Europe, this manipulation was already common; that's what an abacus was for. And the abacus was base 10, wasn't it? So the natural (and optimal) way to write down that result is in a base 10 notation. This Cistercian numerals are base 10000. Try doing a pen and paper multiplication or division using this system. No, seriously, try it. You'll understand why historically we settled on our decimal system. It's basically "divide and conquer" applied to mental math. The good news is that 10000 has 10 as a factor, so base 10000 numerals come sort of natural to us, the learning curve isn't that high.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> This Cistercian numerals are base 10000. Try doing a pen and paper multiplication or division using this system. Sure, in the same way that Babylonian cuneiform numerals are base 60, which is "they're in base 10, but you combine multiple symbols into the space of one glyph". The Cistercian numerals don't have 10,000 separate symbols. They have 10 symbols, and one glyph includes four positional slots in which a symbol appears. They're exactly equivalent to the Arabic numeral system we use now, and the pencil-and-paper multiplication system we use now transfers directly without problems.
- kadoban 6y ago
  It's a bit like hexadecimal and octal and binary like that, in that it's really trivial to convert between those and just see at a glance what the conversion is. Except with Cistercian it's even easier.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    It would be exactly like hexadecimal and binary if the hex glyph for 11, instead of being "A", looked like 1 0 1 1
    - dhosek 6y ago
      pedant alert: you mean B
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        Right you are.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> This Cistercian numerals are base 10000. Try doing a pen and paper multiplication or division using this system. Sure, in the same way that Babylonian cuneiform numerals are base 60, which is "they're in base 10, but you combine multiple symbols into the space of one glyph". The Cistercian numerals don't have 10,000 separate symbols. They have 10 symbols, and one glyph includes four positional slots in which a symbol appears. They're exactly equivalent to the Arabic numeral system we use now, and the pencil-and-paper multiplication system we use now transfers directly without problems.

kadoban 6y ago
It's a bit like hexadecimal and octal and binary like that, in that it's really trivial to convert between those and just see at a glance what the conversion is. Except with Cistercian it's even easier.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  It would be exactly like hexadecimal and binary if the hex glyph for 11, instead of being "A", looked like 1 0 1 1
  - dhosek 6y ago
    pedant alert: you mean B
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Right you are.