ravinlunachick Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Why does place value increase from right to left, when we read numbers from left to right? I'm sure someone here knows the answer to this. :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athena1277 Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Because when you read the number (L to R), you always start with the largest part. For example you say (or read) 4,500 as "4 thousand 5 hundred" not "5 hundred, 4 thousand". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Because it is the convention we humans have agreed upon. It would be equally possible to come up with a notation where place value increases from left to right - or to pronounce the numbers from right to left (which, for two-digit numbers, is actually done in quite a few languages: twenty-one in German is literally "one-and-twenty". In English we do it to numbers under twenty: "eighteen" instead of "teen-eight"..) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravinlunachick Posted February 8, 2012 Author Share Posted February 8, 2012 That's interesting about German, regentrude. I never knew that. I often find myself wishing we did the "teens" in English the way they do in Spanish (ten and seven for 17), though, as they are very confusing to dd. What about cultures that read from right to left? Do they also write place value the way we do? That seems like a tough leap to make in reading larger numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 As our numbers came to Western Civilization From Arabic, I always figured they were like that in Arabic, and never got switched around when then came to left-to-right languages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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