Math Mayan Calendar Essay

The Mayan schedule is a governance of calendars in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, in modern communities in highland Gautemala, in Vercruz, Oxaca, and Chiapas, Mexico. The calendar is filled with mathsematicssematics and a commodious math formation, but it is not exactly compar competent the math dodge we use today. The math system hidden intimate the Mayan Calendar is c bothed the vigesimal System. How does the vigesimal System work? The numbers rede what symbols in the math system? This things use up been in the question a long epoch we still are studying the Mayan Calendar to this day which was made almost 5,000 years ago.The vigesimal System began by the muckle in the Mayan finish deliberateing on their fingers and toes. Since we have ten toes and ten fingers which relates 20, so preferably of having the menage unit as ten, the count was d unity with a lower-ranking 20 system. The System goes by 20 units for example it goes 1, 20, 400, 8000, 16000, etcetera part are tenfold system goes by ten units so it goes 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, etc. This means it has twenty posibble digits for a procurator 0-19, dapple the decimal system we use today only has ten possible digits for a placeholder 0-9.So the numbers 3, 30, and 300 would be represented as threesome, then three times twenty, then three times twenty times twenty, or simply three times four-hundred, which is twenty squared. So in Mayan math the number 123 doesnt mean you have nonpareil 100, deuce 10s, and three 1s, rather it means you have one 400, two 20s, and three 1s (which in our mathematical system that would be 443). So say we want to set up an comparability and we set thirty-one equal to something and we used the vigesimal System, it would look like this 31=20+11, and this is because this mathematical system goes by twenty units.The Mayan math makes it so sooner of positions having a ten-fold, it actually has a twenty-fold. So the positioning system has it so the highe r(prenominal) places get multiplied by twentys instead of tens. Even though it seems like twenty is the only number that the Vigesimal System deals with, it is not, the number five besides has a big role. This is because eon individually side of our hand and toes we have five fingers and toes. The number five is a multiple of the twenty base unit system, so that adds on to the number fives significance.Located inside this big mathematical system you only find three symbols for all the numbers. These symbols once once again are based on the fact that the Vigesimal System is based on twenty units 0-19. The three symbols are the deportation, bar, and the shell. The dust-worth one unit, the bar- worth five units, and the shell- symbolizes the zero. The zero was actually founded by the Mayan people while in the process of making the Mayan Calendar and is one of the most all important(p) numbers that were ever distinguished. These symbols can be combined to represent all number.Thi s Chart below is going to show how the symbols are used to represent the twenty placeholders 0-19 When you use the Vigesimal System there is a regulating that only the higher places get multiplied by twentys instead of tens in the Decimal System we use. In the table below the number 168,421 is going to be compared in the ground it would be expressed between the Decimal System and the Vigesimal System.When composition the numbers they can be written vertically or horizontally, When you keep in vertical writing the bar that is worth five units is rigid horizontally with a dot worth one unit on top of the bar. When writing them vertically they win from the base up. With the horizontal writing the bar is placed vertically and the dots go to their left and higher positions grow left of the first entry. When writing vertical, to write a twenty a zero is placed in the first position (base) with a dot on top of it in the second position. The dot in this land site means one unit of t he second order which will equal twenty. To write twenty-one the zero would change to a dot and the incidental numbers the original 19 count will be in the first position. As in turn they reach 19 again they get an other dot is added to the second position.Any number higher than 19 units in the second position is written using units in the three position. All units of the third position are al ways worth twenty time twenty, 400. To write the number 401 a dot would go in the first position, a zero in the second position, and a dot would go in the third position too. The numbers even higher than the third position would be multiplied by twenty again. The chart shown below shows an example of the Mathematical Count Like any other thing the mathematical count does have one exception, it is called the calendric count which is when they give the third position a determine equal to 360 instead of 400, but the higher positions follow the regular pattern, being multiplied by twenty.The Mayan Long Count inside the Mayan Calendar is another thing that evolves aroung the Vigesimal System, so it is based around the twenty units. The first position counted virtuoso geezerhood, called kin. The second position is called the uinal, which is equivalent to twenty kin. The twenty uinal does not equal the third position it makes an 18-fold derail instead so that 100 or tun in the calendar represents eightenn times twenty or 360 days. That is slightly over 365 days which is the amount of days we have in a year.This then makes a twenty-fold jump increase, so 1000 or one katun is expressed by the value 20 x 18 x 20, 7,200 days which is a itsy-bitsy less than twenty years. The next position is expressed by 20 x 20 x 18 x 20, 144,000 days which equals one baktun, a little less than 400 years. When using the Decimal System, they go as high as 9, but in the Vigesimal Systemthey can go all the way up to 19. So mathematically when we write Mayan numbers we use decimal points to sh ow each digits position. We write 1.17.19 to represent the Mayan number that equals one tun (360 days), plus seventeen uinal (20 days), plus nineteen kin which has a complete of 719 days. The Mayan Long Count only reached 12.19.19.17.19 on December 20th.The way the Mayan people made this calendar with the Vigesimal System was one of the most undreamt of things ever. Them using the twenty based system has made a push-down stack of research been done to investigate the math held inside the Mayan Calendar. Being able to use math 5,000 years ago has shown some determination and intelligence. The math held inside this Mayan Calendar may have made the whole valet de chambre change, and the mathematics of the Vigesimal System hidden in the Mayan Calendar has shown how math can change the world. It also shows how math is used in passing(a) life and how if people were not using math a roofy of things would not be here to this very day and it shows multiple ways math effects people in their everyday life.