I found it extremely interesting that back in the day, priests could not be ordained if unable to use arithmetic to compute the day of Easter and teach it to others. I have always wondered that without technology how history and dates were able to be retained, and it nbever occurred to me that mathematics was involved.
In class, we learned that multiplication and multiplication tables date back all the way to the Babylonians. However, it was interesting to read that methods of division was only developed during the medieval times. This begs the question of what took so long for scholars to find the counterpart of multiplication.
Recorde's method of multiplication really intrigued me. At first glance, I was confused and did not know what he was doing. It is really interesting as to why and how he has came up with such a method, that at first glance, looks like he is going in circles. It was also interesting how the text mentioned that the cross he does when multiplying could be the first glance of the multiplication symbol.
Hi Nathaniel, I resonate with your wondering about the lag between multiplication and division systems. So interesting! Any speculations as to why?
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