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Hand Outs For History in Math

Mayan Mathematics

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Marienella Navarro
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56 views3 pages

Hand Outs For History in Math

Mayan Mathematics

Uploaded by

Marienella Navarro
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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History in Mathematics

Mayan and Chinese Mathematics

MAYAN MATHEMATICS
The Maya was an ancient Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in the tropical
lowlands of present-day Mexico, northern Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
The Mayan civilization had settled in the region of Central America from about 2000 BCE,
although the so-called Classic Period stretches from about 250 CE to 900 CE. At its peak,
it was one of the most densely populated and culturally dynamic societies in the world.

The importance of astronomy and calendar calculations in Mayan society required


mathematics, and the Maya constructed quite early a very sophisticated number system,
possibly more advanced than any other in the world at the time (although the dating of
developments is quite difficult).
It now appears that the Maya had begun to use a system of numeration by position as
early as the Late Preclassic (ca 400 BC-AD 150). Also called place-value notation, a
positional notation is a system for representation of numbers -like our own- in which the
value of a numeral symbol depends on its position (e.g. the “ones place”, “tens place”,
“hundreds place”).
One of the great intellectual accomplishments of the Maya was the use of the
mathematical concept of zero. They were only one of two ancient civilizations to use it
(the great Egyptians never used zero), and the appearance of the zero in Maya
inscriptions is one of the earliest known instances of this concept in the world.

HOW TO READ MAYA NUMERALS?

In their numeral system, the Mayan used a vigesimal number system based on base
20, probably originally developed from counting on fingers and toes. The ancient Maya
only used three symbols to represent all numbers. A dot has a numerical value of 1, a
line (or bar) a numerical value of 5 and a shell has the value of “completion” or 0.
These symbols (dot, bar and shell) are thought to represent items that the Maya people
might have first used to count with, such as pebbles, sticks and shells.
In other words, zero is represented by a shell; 1 to 4 are represented by dots. The Maya
wrote their numbers from top to bottom rather than from left to right.

Vigesimal System
Numbers above nineteen are indicated on the basis of their vertical position. The Maya
used a vigesimal (Base-20) system, so each position is a power of twenty.

VIGESIMAL SYSTEM
Our own Hindu-Arabic numeral system uses powers of tens (“ones place”, “tens
place”, “hundreds place”), it is a decimal or Base-10 system. The ancient Maya used a
vigesimal (Base-20) notation in which each position is a power of twenty.
In a Base-10 system, there are 10 digits (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and a zero. When
writing numbers, once we get to ‘9’ we then have to move across to the next column. We
write a ‘one’ followed by a ‘zero’ to show that we have moved across. Zero is a ‘place-
holder’. From there, we will use the 9 numerals to represent the number we want up to
99. Then, when we go beyond ’99’, we move across to the next column and write ‘100’.
The Maya used a similar system using their 19 numerals and then moving to the next
section and putting a zero (represented by the shell) as a placeholder. However, the
Maya used rows instead of columns, starting from the bottom and working upwards.

HINDU- ARABIC

123 Place Values multiples of 20s:

MAYAN

Let’s use the information about the place values multiples of 20s to decipher a
Mayan number (A).
We translate the symbol into a hindu-arabic number and we multiply it by the multiplier
associated with its vertical position (B). We add the values of each position and come up
with the value of the Mayan number (C). In this example, the Mayan number (A) has a
value of 96,410.

LET’S TRY ANOTHER ONE

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