Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Zenzizenzizenzic

No nothing to do with extreme Zen meditaton, back in the 16th century mathmatical number powers were written out in words rather than as superscripted numbers.  Zenzizenzizenzic is the eighth power of a number.  The  term was suggested by Robert Recorde, a writer of popular mathematics textbooks, in his 1557 work The Whetstone of Witte.  Although, being Welsh, his spelling of zenzizenzizenzic was zenzizenzizenzike and wrote in his book that it  "doeth represent the square of squares squaredly".

 
 

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