Abstract
In spoken English certain simple fractions like 1/2 or 1/4 or 3/4 have special names. We do not say ‘one-fourth’ but one quarter, and 1/2 is pronounced as one half. The French have a special name tiers for 1/3 Fractions of this kind, which serve the purposes of everyday life, may be called natural fractions.
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Notes And References
- 5.Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC) 10529. The text is reproduced in O. Neugebauer and A. Sachs, Mathematical Cuneiform Texts (Newhaven, Connecticut, 1945) p. 16.Google Scholar
- 13.For a discussion of the Euclidean algorithm see, for example, C.B. Boyer, A History of Mathematics (Wiley, 1968) pp. 126–7.Google Scholar
- 14.From Datta and Singh, History of Hindu Mathematics, Part 1 (Asia Publishing House, 1962) p. 189.Google Scholar
- 15.Ibid., p. 190.Google Scholar
- 16.Ibid., p. 196.Google Scholar
- 17.Ibid., p. 196.Google Scholar
- 18.Ibid., p. 198.Google Scholar
- 19.Ibid., p. 188.Google Scholar
- 20.Ibid., p. 170.Google Scholar
- 21.For example, ibid., pp. 155–60.Google Scholar
- 22.Ibid., p. 160.Google Scholar
- 23.Ibid., p. 161.Google Scholar
- 25.From Datta and Singh, op. cit., pp. 291–20.Google Scholar
- 26.See P. Luckey, Der Lehrbrief uber Kreisumfrang von Gamsid b. Mas’ud al-Kashi (Berlin, 1953).Google Scholar
- 27.See A. P. Juschkowitsch, Mathematik im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1964) p. 241.Google Scholar
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