Thomas Chan wrote:

>
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Mariano de Vierna y Carles-Torl* ©á ‘xrote:
>
> > May be one of the best if not the best book about the history
> > of numbers is the book:
> > "Les chiffres ou l'histoire d'une grande invention"
> > by Georges Ifrah
> > and of wich probably there is an English translation.
>
> I believe that (or a similar book by Ifrah) has been translated as _The
> Universal History of Numbers_, published by John Wiley & Sons. There's
> hardcover and paperback versions. I found it in the bookstore among the
> math, astronomy, physics, etc section.

It is the same book (the French is in two volumes, the English in one);
an earlier edition was called *From One to Zero*. It must be used with
*great* caution; I was told (I forget by whom), for instance, that the
very elaborate diagrams of the evolution of the numerals in India,
Islam, and Europe contain many errors.

Also, his analysis of the Proto-Elamite numerals (it was an appendix in
the earlier edition; the treatment looks similar in the new version, but
I haven't compared them) turns out to be quite wrong.

The bibliography is large, and there are many illustrations, and the
price is low.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...