Ethiopian Binary Math
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Ethiopian Binary Math
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Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#2This algorithm is also known as Ancient Egyptian multiplication, Egyptian multiplication, Ethiopian multiplication, Russian multiplication, or peasant multiplication.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_multiplicatio...
Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#3I fail to see the ingenuity, or even any common sense in this. If to "run" the algorithm you are required to have as many stones as the end result (actually quite more if you count those spent on "evil" holes), you might as well spread out on the ground 34 groups of stones with 7 stones in each group and just count them. Or create a 34X7 rectangle and count the stones. So I dare say we differ a lot from the Ethiopian shaman. Reality doesn't always conform to the PC narrative of how all civilizations are equal. Unless you are a sociology major that is.
Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#4I fail to see the ingenuity, or even any common sense in this. If to "run" the algorithm you are required to have as many stones as the end result (actually quite more if you count those spent on "evil" holes), you might as well spread out on the ground 34 groups of stones with 7 stones in each group and just count them. Or create a 34X7 rectangle and count the stones. So I dare say we differ a lot from the Ethiopian…
Correction: to run the algorithm you're required to have at least as many stones as the end result. That's like saying because MAX_INT is set, math on computers is pointless. Any physical process will have a finite upper bound on the size of the result.
I agree that this isn't a remarkably efficient algorithm, but it is novel (it's completely unintuitive to the average reader), and it has a sound basis in mathematics. For the people who employed it, it was an efficient algorithm, or else they wouldn't have continued to use it. Nobody is proposing you're not as smart because you don't do math this way (although frankly, I doubt if you would have derived this by yourself, under the same conditions).
On a side note, I strongly recommend 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. I've been knocked for mentioning it before because it's a pop-sci book, but it explains why cultures 'progressed' at different rates because of largely environmental factors. This might help you overcome your ridiculously defensive bias against African cultures.
Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#5I fail to see the ingenuity, or even any common sense in this. If to "run" the algorithm you are required to have as many stones as the end result (actually quite more if you count those spent on "evil" holes), you might as well spread out on the ground 34 groups of stones with 7 stones in each group and just count them. Or create a 34X7 rectangle and count the stones. So I dare say we differ a lot from the Ethiopian…
> Unless you are a sociology major that is.
John H. Lienhard is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and History, getting his PhD from UC Berkeley.
> I fail to see the ingenuity,
You can't see something ingenious with probably illiterate people using a different base to multiply numbers? As per the Wikipedia link posted by vilhem_s "The method as interpreted by conversion to binary is therefore still in wide use today as implemented by binary multiplier circuits in modern computer processors."
Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#6I fail to see the ingenuity, or even any common sense in this. If to "run" the algorithm you are required to have as many stones as the end result (actually quite more if you count those spent on "evil" holes), you might as well spread out on the ground 34 groups of stones with 7 stones in each group and just count them. Or create a 34X7 rectangle and count the stones. So I dare say we differ a lot from the Ethiopian…
Correction: to run the algorithm you're required to have at least as many stones as the end result. That's like saying because MAX_INT is set, math on computers is pointless. Any physical process will have a finite upper bound on the size of the result. I agree that this isn't a remarkably efficient algorithm, but it is novel (it's completely unintuitive to the average reader), and it has a sound basis in mathematics…
[deleted]
Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#7I fail to see the ingenuity, or even any common sense in this. If to "run" the algorithm you are required to have as many stones as the end result (actually quite more if you count those spent on "evil" holes), you might as well spread out on the ground 34 groups of stones with 7 stones in each group and just count them. Or create a 34X7 rectangle and count the stones. So I dare say we differ a lot from the Ethiopian…
Correction: to run the algorithm you're required to have at least as many stones as the end result. That's like saying because MAX_INT is set, math on computers is pointless. Any physical process will have a finite upper bound on the size of the result. I agree that this isn't a remarkably efficient algorithm, but it is novel (it's completely unintuitive to the average reader), and it has a sound basis in mathematics…
It couldn't have been efficient since it is patently idiotic. Just spread 34 groups of 7 stones each on the ground and count them! That's all you have to do. No algorithm at all, just symbolic logic, and you need fewer stones, and probably takes less time as well. The only way to use this algorithm to portray the mathematical prowess of native Ethiopian culture in some positive way is to argue that the Shamans purposefully used this algorithm to obfuscate the process and maintain the life style and privileges of the priestly class. I dare you to claim with a straight face that this "algorithm" is even remotely comparable to what the Greeks did, e.g. Archimedes' proving, PROVING I repeat, in a mathematically rigorous way, in the 3rd century BC, that a sphere has 2/3 the volume and surface area of its circumscribing cylinder.
Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#8I fail to see the ingenuity, or even any common sense in this. If to "run" the algorithm you are required to have as many stones as the end result (actually quite more if you count those spent on "evil" holes), you might as well spread out on the ground 34 groups of stones with 7 stones in each group and just count them. Or create a 34X7 rectangle and count the stones. So I dare say we differ a lot from the Ethiopian…
> Unless you are a sociology major that is. John H. Lienhard is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and History, getting his PhD from UC Berkeley. > I fail to see the ingenuity, You can't see something ingenious with probably illiterate people using a different base to multiply numbers? As per the Wikipedia link posted by vilhem_s "The method as interpreted by conversion to binary is therefore still in wide…
> John H. Lienhard is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and History, getting his PhD from UC Berkeley.
Close enough for me. Frankly I doubt that he honestly believed every word he wrote. People in high places have to routinely perform public worship of the PC god, "all cultures are equal", etc.
Regarding the "ingenuity" see me reply above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6502665
Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correction: to run the algorithm you're required to have at least as many stones as the end result. That's like saying because MAX_INT is set, math on computers is pointless. Any physical process will have a finite upper bound on the size of the result. I agree that this isn't a remarkably efficient algorithm, but it is novel (it's completely unintuitive to the average reader), and it has a sound basis in mathematics…
It couldn't have been efficient since it is patently idiotic. Just spread 34 groups of 7 stones each on the ground and count them! That's all you have to do. No algorithm at all, just symbolic logic, and you need fewer stones, and probably takes less time as well. The only way to use this algorithm to portray the mathematical prowess of native Ethiopian culture in some positive way is to argue that the Shamans purpos…
You're getting a bit hung up on the stones.
This algorithm allows people to multiply two numbers if all they can do is multiply and divide by 2, and add.
> It couldn't have been efficient since it is patently idiotic.
And yet is it so efficient it is how computers multiply.
Re: Ethiopian Binary Math
#10I fail to see the ingenuity, or even any common sense in this. If to "run" the algorithm you are required to have as many stones as the end result (actually quite more if you count those spent on "evil" holes), you might as well spread out on the ground 34 groups of stones with 7 stones in each group and just count them. Or create a 34X7 rectangle and count the stones. So I dare say we differ a lot from the Ethiopian…
Correction: to run the algorithm you're required to have at least as many stones as the end result. That's like saying because MAX_INT is set, math on computers is pointless. Any physical process will have a finite upper bound on the size of the result. I agree that this isn't a remarkably efficient algorithm, but it is novel (it's completely unintuitive to the average reader), and it has a sound basis in mathematics…
Okay, first and foremost, the algorithm obviously was never actually used in the way this story describes, because it is totally ridiculous and that is not even the point of the article.
But let's say it was. In saying that the shaman knows how to put two sets of 7 stones in a particular pile, it is implying that the shaman also knows how to put 34 sets of 7 stones in a particular pile. He also knows how to count them, so the problem is already solved. What he is doing is a bit more "rube goldberg" than novel. It may have parallels with some real algorithm for multiplication, but it is certainly not a very direct representation of it.