![The Surprising Drama Behind the Decimal Point](https://cdn.magzter.com/1357655529/1718864087/articles/tKrVTqVym1720079694471/THE-SURPRISING-DRAMA-BEHIND-THE-DECIMAL-POINT.jpg)
Clearly, the decimal point is incredibly important to the way we do math today. So, why did Clavius abandon such a monumental discovery so soon after making it?
Because he'd stolen it.
Well, "stole" may imply a bit more malice than is necessary. Let's not read motive into 14th century mathematicians. But according to a paper published in the journal Historia Mathematica, Clavius actually likely imported the decimal point into his own work when referencing the work of Italian merchant and mathematician Giovanni Bianchini from the 1440s-work that had been done almost 150 years earlier.
"In order to understand what Bianchini was doing," Glen Van Brummelen, PhD, a math historian at Trinity Western University in Canada, told the journal Nature, "you had to learn a completely new system of arithmetic."
This story is from the July - August 2024 edition of Popular Mechanics US.
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This story is from the July - August 2024 edition of Popular Mechanics US.
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