9
Comments
  • 4
    @jespersh yup that hurts to look at
  • 15
    Indian commas are drunk.
  • 2
    @jespersh same
  • 0
    @jespersh i am curious how else it’s written
  • 1
    @hardfault without commas. the only separator is decimal separator and that's it

    like, 1234.5 or 1234,5 instead of 1,234.5

    much less confusing
  • 2
    How the fuck is this even read?!
    I am guessing superscript ⁰⁰ are decimals..and first comma from right is the thousand separator..
    But what's with the left most comma?! O.o
  • 1
    @iiii what ? noo that’s dumb, idea is just to look at number of commas and figure out which 10’s place you are in.
    That is the only reason commas are added
  • 4
    @hardfault how is it tens if the first one separates 3 digit and the second one separates only two? Those aren't even thousands separators at all
  • 8
    @sladuled
    Haha I always find millions and billions confusing too , we just have one more degree of precision ( might be the reason why Indians are better at math 🤪)
  • 6
    @hardfault wtf? Why the first one is a thousand but each other one is not? How is that even remotely practical?
  • 6
    @hardfault In English (and all other European languages) the comma only comes between packs of the three digits.
    So it would be 282,540.00 in the example. Or 1,234,567.00 as another. Meaning one comma for a thousand, for a million, a billion etc.
    That's much easier to remember then the Indian system.
  • 2
    @Benedikt last line is very subjective
  • 4
    For anyone who is confused and wants to remain that way after hearing the actual explanation.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Pay particular attention to 12,12,12,123 and 121,212,123 are the same number.
  • 2
    @SortOfTested interestingly
    121,212,123
    Appears a bigger number to me when compared to
    12,12,12,123
  • 4
    @hardfault
    That's because you're used to lakh and crore notation. The Indian numbering system tends to read to non-Indians the same way imperial measurements reads to people who are used to only metric.

    The rest of the world settled on every three orders of magnitude be delimited by a comma purely for consistency. The values also normalized as well, interestingly enough; the british used to actually write 1 billion as 1MMM (1,000,000,000,000). It all normalized over time.
  • 3
    @SortOfTested not exactly "the rest of the world". Europe and north Asia generally use comma as a decimal delimiter and a space as a thousands separator unlike USA which uses comma as a thousands separator and dot as a decimal delimiter.

    Internationally recommended thousands separator is a space. And that way is a SI standard way of writing a decimal number as well.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  • 2
    @iiii
    True. Should have said "some delimiter." No one else does [insert delimiter here] every 2 orders above the first 3 😋
  • 4
    @hardfault o.O this... is.. weird...
    No offence, but..wow.. I think my head will be scrambled for a couple of days at least.. o.O
    I somewhat normally handle switching between ,. & ., but having thousand separator to switch to hundreds after first occurance.. you killed my head with this..

    I know to you reading this format comes naturally since you learned this way from a young age but still: hats off!!
  • 0
    Ok, now that we have said this, how many Indian money is one international money ?
  • 0
    @SortOfTested Can confirm, still confused, might know more now, but not sure.
  • 1
    @vigidis “objectively better” you mean “easier to understand”
    I don’t know man, my people discovered the number system that whole world uses, my be they knew better about “what is better”
    Also it’s not Arabic Numbers system, it’s Indian number system, European just call it arabic cause they learned it from Arabs( typical Europeans)
  • 3
    @hardfault if someone did something smart thousands years ago, does not mean someone else haven't done anything stupid as well.
  • 2
    @hardfault
    We refer to it as hindu-arabic numerals because they contributed decimal fractions and the bulk of rudimentary algebra.
  • 1
    @SortOfTested again Arabs did invent anything they just helped to spread it( and by killing anyone who didn’t agree to it )
  • 0
    @hardfault how do you know that so precisely?
  • 1
    @hardfault
    See, now we're getting into politics and that's where I get off. There's tens of thousands of manuscripts from that time period which are the product of arab work, and none with the same or similar work in the indic system.
  • 1
    @iiii Wikipedia , or you can google Etymology of number system
  • 1
    @SortOfTested sad we live in a world where talking about history is politics

    Anyways i was quoting Wikipedia

    “The Hindu-Arabic or Indo-Arabic numerals were invented by mathematicians in India. Persian and Arabic mathematicians called them "Hindu numerals" (where "Hindu" meant Indian). Later they came to be called "Arabic numerals" in Europe because they were introduced to the West by Arab merchants.”
  • 1
    @hardfault
    We don't call it arabic numerals though. We call it hindu-arabic numerals, so I'm not sure what the problem is with giving credit where it's due.

    Also quoted:
    "Mathematics during the Golden Age of Islam, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries, was built on Greek mathematics (Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius) and Indian mathematics (Aryabhata, Brahmagupta). Important progress was made, such as the full development of the decimal place-value system to include decimal fractions, the first systematised study of algebra (named for The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing by scholar Al-Khwarizmi), and advances in geometry and trigonometry.[1]"
  • 1
    @vigidis if I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean i hate you, it just means my brain thinks differently.
  • 0
    @SortOfTested that just mean Indians are bad at documenting things, and i agree to that
    Thanks to Al-Khwarizmi who did it still didn’t invent it though
  • 1
    @hardfault @vigidis
    Seems like solid ground for a debate, I'll frame it for you:

    Two algorithms performing identical computations with differing time and identical space complexity can be said to have a clear better or worse solution. It is also possible for two systems performing similar but not identical functions with compartmental overlap, and having different complexities to perform the same task with different levels of efficiency.

    Given those definitions:

    1. A standard of equality must be established to determine which sets of the given space are comparable. Define this equality
    2. If the system in weaker overall from a complexity standpoint, but has more expansive functionality, what is the delta?
    3. Does the delta in question make is superior, lesser or merely different?
  • 1
    @hardfault
    Re: documentation
    I have no opinion on that, other than it doesn't hold up as a body of evidence. We'd be fools to accept that as an alternative for evidence. >_<
  • 2
    @SortOfTested I want to reply in detail I would say though that needs of present is different from past. I don’t think number system is developed based on the point you have mentioned ( which are indeed interesting) but rather number system is developed to count money.
    that is what played more influential role I guess.
    Also currently used number system is already failed for Riemann-zeta function and spitting out weird results
    Like
    1+2+3..... ♾ = -1/12
    So i mean something is definitely missing it’s not perfect
  • 1
    @hardfault u see the pattern here? Now the debate is in denial state, means no matter how much u will try prove, someone will come up with something.
    Also, for western people like Europeans specially, they generally think India existence start from the time britishers came to India. Then don't realize the moment they were settling up, indian regions were having complete civilization with properly designed societies and metrics. (this is not an offence, it general thing that can be seen in all debates.)
    @SortOfTested I agree with the point having commas after 3 numbers is standard {easy in calculations} but to understand the Indian system and why it's like that, u have to understand hindi names of them. It still exist because it is way older system than SI. Second the big population. Third the use case.
  • 2
    @notSoCoolGuy
    The imperial system is way older than the metric system, and we should definitely already be off that. 🤷‍♀️ I'm not really into heirlooms.
  • 1
    @SortOfTested India also had measurements like imperial system specially for length measurements but that is changing as people are getting educated and SI one is more standard. But Indian number system is not like imperial system. If you will see its almost like the standard one 22223 vs 33333. And heirloom is only the first case that I mentioned. As long as number is related to something for Indian, Indians gonna use Indian system means its not gonna change anywhere soon, atleast not for 5-6 decades(I just made the timeline in my mind) . But we Convert it when we have to present it to outsiders. Even we get angry when someone try to present Indian system to outsiders.
  • 1
  • 1
    @notSoCoolGuy
    I'm not suggesting a change, just pointing out that holding onto something because it's old isn't necessarily logical.

    I'm also not trying to convert anyone for any reason, moreso trying to bridge a gap of understanding. I tend to think your 6 decade estimate is generous. Which is fine, we need a few oddballs to keep it interesting, the world is overly homogenized. Even China adopted the SI system over suzhuo after ~4000 years, so a little flavor never hurts. Their myriad ordering is interesting, as is the difference between simplified and financial characters. It's actually funny, when you get out of the cities, some of the signs feature both symbologies because they can't get the rural populace updated.

    This is just a topic of interest to me as I've studied a large number of numbering systems over the years and most all of them started at "I have 10 fingers." Then simultaneously around the year 0, a bunch of clever gupta's and mayans dared to ask, "how many do you have if I cut them all off." The exception of course being the babylonian sexagesimal system which became the basis for most navigation and cartographic systems.
  • 3
    @notSoCoolGuy
    The first rule of quora, is quora never adds value.
  • 1
    @hardfault that fail you mentioned is not related to the number system but to algebra and is also a product of an error rather than a correct algebraic transformation.
  • 0
    @yowhatthefuck
    Not sure we're talking about the same thing. The delimiting system is definitely not shorter ><

    100,000,000 (standard)
    10,00,00,000 (shatner comma)

    We dropped roman numerals a thousand years ago, so you won't get arguments from us.
  • 0
    @yowhatthefuck what's bad in one hundred million?
  • 0
    @yowhatthefuck
    Converting can be tricky, though here it would be

    100 million
    or
    100M (metric)

    written

    Other number written, linguistically:
    Nine hundred ninety eight thousand four hundred dollars. And is only used for separating whole numbers and decimal values; placing an and elsewhere is something children have points deducted for on tests.

    Extremely large numbers have names from latin in the short and long scales, and are similar in magnitude to the Indian system, but expanding every 3 and 6 orders of magnitude respectively.

    Short scale, 10^24
    1 septillion

    Then there's the metric scale, which I prefer (greek):

    Deca, hecto, kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, exa, zetta, yotta

    deci, centi, milli, nano, pico etc

    But we also don't tend to write those and just use scientific notation for unreasonably large numbers, or their shorthand prefix.

    1e24
    1e100
    1Y
    100Y
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