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
Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC) 10529. The text is reproduced in O. Neugebauer and A. Sachs, Mathematical Cuneiform Texts (Newhaven, Connecticut, 1945) p. 16.
For a discussion of the Euclidean algorithm see, for example, C.B. Boyer, A History of Mathematics (Wiley, 1968) pp. 126–7.
From Datta and Singh, History of Hindu Mathematics, Part 1 (Asia Publishing House, 1962) p. 189.
Ibid., p. 190.
Ibid., p. 196.
Ibid., p. 196.
Ibid., p. 198.
Ibid., p. 188.
Ibid., p. 170.
For example, ibid., pp. 155–60.
Ibid., p. 160.
Ibid., p. 161.
From Datta and Singh, op. cit., pp. 291–20.
See P. Luckey, Der Lehrbrief uber Kreisumfrang von Gamsid b. Mas’ud al-Kashi (Berlin, 1953).
See A. P. Juschkowitsch, Mathematik im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1964) p. 241.
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© 1989 The Open University
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Flegg, G. (1989). Fractions and Calculation. In: Flegg, G. (eds) Numbers Through the Ages. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20177-8_5
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