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Actually ancient Egyptians invented binary calculations much earlier. https://medium.com/@jillplatts/ancient-egyptians-the-original-computer-scientists-ab97322

by pier25 3y ago

Actually ancient Egyptians invented binary calculations much earlier. https://medium.com/@jillplatts/ancient-egyptians-the-original-computer-scientists-ab97322d48dd https://medium.com/@jillplatts/ancient-egyptians-the-origina...

benatkin 3y ago
The title is from the article. I dunno why you think the author who took the time to write the article deserves this gotcha or why we should divert focus from the article. If it was editorial by the submitter then yeah maybe... Edit: on review it does seem to be on topic, sorry. It seems unconvincing to me because it has only multiplication and division, where addition and subtraction point more to recognizing it as a workable number system. I'd like to see an expert's analysis.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  > I'd like to see an expert's analysis. Wikipedia seems like a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number
readthenotes1 3y ago
One thing that occurs to me is that we often fail to believe that people 3000 years ago were just as smart as we are, blinded both by our knowledge of them and our certainty of their limited knowledge. Limited knowledge does not mean that one is not innately smart though, and unable to figure some stuff out...
- AdieuToLogic 3y ago
  > One thing that occurs to me is that we often fail to believe that people 3000 years ago were just as smart as we are ... I think of this as "hubris of the now." This is where people cannot fathom how previous generations could achieve what they did without the tools and/or knowledge which exists in the present. An example of this is found when contemplating how atmospheric differential equations were solved with computers having about 4k of RAM in the 1940's.
- AdieuToLogic 3y ago
  Here is another data point which supports your conjecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
vanderZwan 3y ago
I suspect this article refers to binary positional notation, specifically, although it could have been more explicit about that. Having said that it would indeed have surprised me a lot if powers-of-two based calculations wouldn't be among the oldest ones we have. Doubling or halving things seems quite natural.

by pier25 3y ago

benatkin 3y ago

The title is from the article. I dunno why you think the author who took the time to write the article deserves this gotcha or why we should divert focus from the article. If it was editorial by the submitter then yeah maybe... Edit: on review it does seem to be on topic, sorry. It seems unconvincing to me because it has only multiplication and division, where addition and subtraction point more to recognizing it as a workable number system. I'd like to see an expert's analysis.

CharlesW 3y ago
> I'd like to see an expert's analysis. Wikipedia seems like a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number

readthenotes1 3y ago

One thing that occurs to me is that we often fail to believe that people 3000 years ago were just as smart as we are, blinded both by our knowledge of them and our certainty of their limited knowledge. Limited knowledge does not mean that one is not innately smart though, and unable to figure some stuff out...

AdieuToLogic 3y ago
> One thing that occurs to me is that we often fail to believe that people 3000 years ago were just as smart as we are ... I think of this as "hubris of the now." This is where people cannot fathom how previous generations could achieve what they did without the tools and/or knowledge which exists in the present. An example of this is found when contemplating how atmospheric differential equations were solved with computers having about 4k of RAM in the 1940's.
AdieuToLogic 3y ago
Here is another data point which supports your conjecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

vanderZwan 3y ago

I suspect this article refers to binary positional notation, specifically, although it could have been more explicit about that. Having said that it would indeed have surprised me a lot if powers-of-two based calculations wouldn't be among the oldest ones we have. Doubling or halving things seems quite natural.