FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN: MAYAN VIGESIMAL

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• published: 11 Apr 2016
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NUS GEK1536 VIDEO PROJECT SCEIPT: The Maya had surprised achievement in architecture, mathematics and astronomy, and developed a complex culture centered on commerce, farming and religious beliefs. However, most of them were destroyed in 16th century when the Spanish conquered the Yucatan Peninsula. One of their fantastic inventions is the Vigesimal, also called base-20. Scientists believe that base 20 was invented because humans have 20 fingers and toes in total. Mayan numbers consists of three symbols, dot, bar and shell, relatively represents 1, 5 and 0. Here is a glance of Mayan numbers from 1 to 19. That the Maya had invented a symbol for 0 is probably the most important aspect of their mathematic system. Why? It’s because the value of a number is determined by the place where it appears, and a zero is needed to occupy the empty place to show different values. The Mayan number system does pay attention to the position of symbols, and it was constructed depending on Vigesimal. They wrote numbers from bottom to top for increasing values. Each value place equals to a power of 20, starting from 20 to the power of zero, and then to the power of 1,2,3,4 and so on. Then, how did the Maya write numbers above 20? Let us take 20 as an example. Here is 19 in the bottom. Adding one more dot, is it 20? No, because 19 is the maximum in each value place. Therefore, four bars are carried and equal to one dot in the next higher place. Now we need to put a shell as a zero in the unit’s place. That is 20! The zero can help to create and distinguish numbers, see, how important it is! At the end, let me tell you some interesting facts. One of the Mayan calendars is called long count, which is based on Vigesimal. The Maya thought the world originated on 3114 BCE, so according to the long count calendar, after around 5000 years, which is Dec. 21, 2012 AC is the end of the world, a doomsday. But, you know, it is not. What’s more, many languages today are affected by Vigesimal including French and Danish. In English, this number is ninety-seven, but in French, is the long word as shown, which means 4*20+10+7, and in Danish is even more complicated. In other languages, we can also see the specialty of 20, just like veinte in Spanish and 廿 (nian4) in Chinese. That’ all, thanks GEK1536!