Btw, I looked into the history of Arabic numbers a while ago, and I will bet my hat they did not come up with it themselves. The conveyance of zero from the Arabs to the West occured circa 1200 AD. This in the latter period of what's known as the Islamic Golden Age, but what many people don't realize is that this intellectual flourish seen in the Muslim empire arose directly from the intellectual resources of the regions they conquered.
The Muslims were essentially intellectual scavengers (or predators) who did not originate any unique concepts on their own. This explains why their progress stagnated once their territorial expansion was halted.
As far as I know, the positional notation system with 10 digits including 0 and signifying for instance "10" as, well, "10", came from Hindus in India. The current characters, I believe, came from the Middle East, and they might also have added the idea of a fraction, like "3.14".
Btw, I looked into the history of Arabic numbers a while ago, and I will bet my hat they did not come up with it themselves. The conveyance of zero from the Arabs to the West occured circa 1200 AD. This in the latter period of what's known as the Islamic Golden Age, but what many people don't realize is that this intellectual flourish seen in the Muslim empire arose directly from the intellectual resources of the regions they conquered.
The Muslims were essentially intellectual scavengers (or predators) who did not originate any unique concepts on their own. This explains why their progress stagnated once their territorial expansion was halted.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/history-of-zero/
As far as I know, the positional notation system with 10 digits including 0 and signifying for instance "10" as, well, "10", came from Hindus in India. The current characters, I believe, came from the Middle East, and they might also have added the idea of a fraction, like "3.14".
I agree, but don't forget about the centuries of rampant cousin marriages they've done. That sure hasn't helped their IQ.
That's essentially the same as... Well anything. Big corporations don't innovate, they buy innovation.