Friday, November 27, 2009

μυριάς (myrias) - “‘number of 10,000’”

I love little bites of knowledge.

In reading Isaac Asimov's "Realm of Numbers" I come to a paragraph about how the Greeks gave the name "Myrias" to the number 10,000.

We have "hundred" for 100.
"Thousand" for 1000
And once, in a long ago time, we had "myrias" for 10,000,
Or at least the Greeks did.
Now we just have boring old "ten-thousand".

From the Greek word myrias we now have "myriad".

12 comments:

strangerland said...

I didn't know that. Haven't made it to the enneagram test yet. Just got home from seeing the Meat Puppets play at a local club called The Otto Bar near Johns Hopkins University. I had never heard them before. Listened to a cd on the way, and the show was good, but my ears are ringing now. Anyway I think test results will be skewed after myriad beers and medicinal herbage. Perhaps tomorrow. Cheers.

Sophia said...

Someone had fun tonight! I guess that's what people do on Friday nights. My Friday Night Fun is had hermit-style.

Don said...

My simplified number system is "One, Two, Three, Many".

Sophia said...

Don, that's about where it all started. Early man didn't have much use for anything beyond a few numbers. And they really didn't think of a number they just knew the pattern of what one, two or three looked like. So if one man had three axes and one came up missing, he'd be able to tell.

I've learned about different ways to do finger counting, and I think I could be a master of the abacus now, too.

Don said...

That history is what I was referring to.

Don said...

That was misleading. Shouldn't have said "My number system". "Early primitive number systems" would have been correct.

Bob said...

I love learning the source of words. Thanks Sophia.

Kim Graae said...

And now it's "Zero, one, many" in our computer age.

By the way, in Denmark we have old words like "snes" for twenty and "dusin" for twelve, what do you have in english?

Don said...

"Score" for 20, "dozen" for 12 come to mind.

Boris said...

Sophia,
Do you like numbers? Maybe you have heard about perfect numbers: a perfect number is defined as a positive integer that is the sum of its proper positive divisors, that is, the sum of the positive divisors excluding the number itself. For example: 6 = 1+2+3. The next one: 28 = 1+2+4+7+14
Numbers as life, have a hidden beauty...

Sophia said...

Boris, I think you and I just experienced telepathy. About 15 minutes ago I was laying in bed thinking about perfect numbers. I get up to check my email and there is your comment about perfect numbers.

Yes, I like numbers... a lot! I majored in mathematics in college. It's nice to go back and teach myself all the things I didn't learn.

Boris said...

OK, Sophia,
So next time I am not going to write a comment to you. I will just send you my comment by telepathy.. ;)