How did numbers get their written shapes?
You've written thousands of numbers in your life — but have you ever stopped to wonder why a "2" looks like that**? Why does "5" have that little hat? Who decided "8" should be two circles stacked up like a snowman? The shapes we write aren't random squiggles. Each one has a story that winds back through hundreds of years and across continents**.
Our number shapes began about 1,500 years ago in India. Mathematicians there needed symbols for counting and calculating — something better than tallies or words. They invented nine symbols (1 through 9) plus a brilliant placeholder for "nothing": zero. These weren't the shapes we know yet. Early Indian "2" looked more like a sideways Z. "3" was three horizontal lines stacked up, like the number of things it represented.
