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A Story of Numbers Sensing her curiosity, her father started telling her how the idea of number and number representation evolved over the course of time, across geographies, to finally reach its modern efficient form. Get ready to travel back in time with them! Humans had the need to count even as early as the Stone Age. They were counting to determine the quantity of food they had, the number of animals in their livestock, details regarding trades of goods, the number of offerings given in rituals, etc. They also wanted to keep track of the passing days, e.g., to know and predict when important events such as the new moon, full moon, or onset of a season would occur. However, when they said or wrote down such numbers, they didn’t make use of the numbers that we use today. The structure of the modern oral and written numbers that we use today had its origin thousands of years ago in India. Ancient Indian texts, such as the Yajurveda Samhita, mentioned names of numbers based on powers of 10, almost as we say them orally today. For example, they listed names for the numbers one(eka), ten (dasha), hundred (shata), thousand (sahasra), ten thousand (āyuta), etc., all the way up to 10 and beyond. The way we write our numbers today — using the digits 0 through 9 — also originated and were developed in India, around 2000 years ago. The first known instance of numbers being written using ten digits, including the digit 0 (which was then notated as a dot), occurs in the Bakhshali manuscript (c. 3rd century CE). Aryabhata (c. 499 CE) was the first mathematician to fully explain, and do elaborate scientific computations with the Zero in the Bakhshali manuscript Indian system of 10 symbols. The Indian number system was transmitted to the Arab world by around 800 CE. It was popularised in the Arab world by the great Persian mathematician Al-Khwārizmī (after whom the word ‘algorithm’ is named) through his book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals (c. 825) and by the noted philosopher Al-Kindi through his work On the Use of the Hindu Numerals (c . 830). FromtheArabworld,theHindunumeralsweretransmittedtoEurope and to parts of Africa by around 1100 CE. Though Al-Khwārizmī’s work on calculation with Hindu numerals was translated into Latin, it was the Italian mathematician Fibonacci who around the year 1200 really made the case to Europe to adopt the Indian numerals. However, the Roman numerals were so ingrained in European thinking and writing at the time that the Indian numerals did not gain widespread use for several more centuries. But eventually, during the European Renaissance and by the 17th century, not adopting them became impossible or it would impede scientific progress. 49 Reprint 2026-27