Tutorial 1A i. What is meant by the statement The Mayan system of numeration was place valued? ii.

What are the features of our modern Hindu-Arabic system of numeration that make it superior to other systems and led to its adoption worldwide? iii. Why is it important to learn about early number systems? Why is its development an important part of numerations systems? Answer 1. The Mayan system of numeration was a vertical place-value, and the first system to produce a symbol for zero. It only used three elementary numerals that are a dot, a bar and a symbol for zero which is usually a shell. The place value is used to expand the system to allow the expression of a very large value. This system has two significant differences from the system that are used now. First, the numbers are arranged vertically and they use a base 20. This means that the number in the second place in the Mayan system has a value of 20 times the value of the numeral. For example in 102, 2 holds ones place, 0 holds tens place and 1 holds hundreds place. Our system of numbers is placed valued. If you have the number 3 in the rightmost place (ones) it means three but if it in the second place (tens) it means 30, the third place is 300 etc. The Mayan numbers are written vertically with the "ones" at the bottom.

2. The modern Hindu-Arabic system of numeration is superior when compared to the other systems because of several of its distinctive features and these makes it the system that is widely used around the world. They are four main features that made this system easy to use. Firstly, the Hindu-Arabic system of numeration uses 10 digits or symbols that can be used in combination to represent all possible numbers that can be created. The digits are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Secondly, the numerals are grouped by ten, which is maybe caused by the fact that we had 10 digits on our two hands. The digit here means our fingers or toes. In this system, ten ones are replaced by one ten; ten tens are replaced by one hundred, ten hundreds are replaced by one

thousand, and so forth. The third feature is, it uses the concept of place value that start from right to the left. For example, the first number represents how many ones there are, the second number represents how many tens there are, the third number represents how many hundreds there are, and so on. Last but not least, the last feature that made Hindu-Arabic numeration system is used across the world is because the system is additive and multiplicative. We can calculate easier by using this system compare to the other system. It numerals also have has a word name that make the symbols easy to distinguish. 3. It is important to learn about the early number system because it allows us to explore more of the number system that had been used before the one that are used now. Besides, we can make comparisons between the numeration system and relate how are they different and similar from one another. Then, they are some of features in the numeration system that has been evolved or inspire in the creation of the numeration system that are used now. More importantly, learning the early number system make us appreciate more of the efforts that had been made by the previous mathematician on how they had create a system to make calculation easy.