I'm really excited about how well one of my new lesson ideas for fifth grade CS is working out.
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@llewelly @futurebird now i'm imagining a system where tabs and spaces are used to designate place value in a system with no zeroes...
@apophis @futurebird @llewelly I mean, worse has been done [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language) ].
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@apophis @futurebird @llewelly I mean, worse has been done [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language) ].
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@futurebird cool! But don't forget that ancient mesoamerican civilizations like the Maya did have a numeral for zero which is often glossed over in eurocentric histories. I'm not sure exactly when this developed but I think it was around the dawn of the common era.
The cuneiform system is VERY old. We are talking 2900BC, so the Maya zero, is much later. But also probably independent of the zero from India.
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@futurebird have you tried to doing long division in hex? it's not easy.
Not messing with that without a big multiplication table at hand.