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Fact check: Is Mamdani introducing Arabic numerals to New York schools? (www.newsweek.com)

submitted 19 hours ago by solrize@lemmy.ml to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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Another post from betting market company Polymarket read: "BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani to require all New York elementary school students to learn Arabic numerals." The post has almost 14 million views.

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 33 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Basically, what we call "Arabic Numerals", including the number 0, have their origin in India. Europe got them from Arabic scholars, and therefore called them "Arabic".

The main factor is the decimal system of writing and having the concept of a zero in contrast to the odd, additive and subtractive writing of the Roman numerals, which didn't even know a 0, and made multiplication a pain and division nearly impossible.

What glyph is actually used for a one, be it a 1 or a ١, is absolutely secondary.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I want to correct something. They knew what nothing meant. They just didn't conceptualize the absence of things as a number. And honestly, it's a bit weird, but it is useful. You can't have 0 apples, but the concept is useful for math.