The Archimedean Origin of Modern Positional Number Systems

Abstract

A symbolic analysis of Archimedes’s periodical number system is developed, from which a natural link emerges with the modern positional number systems with zero. After the publication of Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci, the decimal Indo-Arabic positional system was the basis of the algorithmic and algebraic trend of modern mathematics, but even if zero plays a crucial role in algebra and mathematical analysis, zeroless positional systems show the same capability of producing efficient arithmetical algorithms based on operation tables over digits. The crucial role of digits is assessed, by considering a representation of numbers based on strings in lexicographic order. A new algorithm for the determination of decimal periods is presented by remarking on the cruciality of this topic in number theory. Periods of ordinal numbers and enumerations of recursive enumerability are shortly recalled. Concluding remarks are formulated about the deep relationship between numbers and information, which shed new light on a red line passing through the whole history of mathematics.