The Mathematical Enigma of Guamán Poma’s Yupana
A Hundred Years' Riddle
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Beschreibung
Against a century of inclusive studies, this book presents a new interpretation of the Inca calculating board known as the yupana, based on a different set of assumptions. Instead of seeing Inca numbers as positional, like the modern Hindu-Arabic numerals used by Western researchers, this new approach looks at them as additive, similar in organization to the numbers of ancient civilizations like Egypt. By analyzing Guamán Poma's work and considering the nature of the materials used by the Inca for recording and calculating with numbers, this new work finds a mathematical message, a multiplication algorithm, in the historical drawing. Finding a multiplication in the ancient drawing leads to considering the decipherment correct. The text is written to be accessible to non-experts, as well as experts in fields other than mathematics. The work is addressed to researchers in the field, those interested in the history of mathematics, those attracted by mathematical enigmas, and especially the Andean peoples searching for lost knowledge of their past.
Against a century of inclusive studies, this book presents a new interpretation of the Inca calculating board known as the yupana, based on a different set of assumptions. Instead of seeing Inca numbers as positional, like the modern Hindu-Arabic numerals used by Western researchers, this new approach looks at them as additive, similar in organization to the numbers of ancient civilizations like Egypt. By analyzing Guamán Poma's work and considering the nature of the materials used by the Inca for recording and calculating with numbers, this new work finds a mathematical message, a multiplication algorithm, in the historical drawing. Finding a multiplication in the ancient drawing leads to considering the decipherment correct. The text is written to be accessible to non-experts, as well as experts in fields other than mathematics. The work is addressed to researchers in the field, those interested in the history of mathematics, those attracted by mathematical enigmas, and especially the Andean peoples searching for lost knowledge of their past.
This book is the first to find a mathematical message in the calculating board drawn in 1615 by an Inca nobleman This book uniquely suggests that Inca numbers were additive rather than positional This interpretation shows how the knots on the quipu and the seeds on the yupana are connected to each other
Autor*in
Cinzia Florio
Themen in »The Mathematical Enigma of Guamán Poma’s Yupana«
How the calculations were carried out on the Inca yupana How quipu and yupana are connected to each other The yupana in Spanish Chronicles The yupana of Guaman Poma Additive numerals and positional numerals