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A comment on Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer?. Parent comment

Re:Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer? by rational_indian on Friday March 01, 2013 @10:35AM (#5304754)
I think Greeks + Romans + Indians increases the odds significantly.

The Indians had an understanding of the required math...

1. Binary numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#History 2. Zero: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(number)#India 3. A brief history of Indian mathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Indexes/Indians.html

This combined with the engineering skills of the other civilizations could have in theory heralded the digital age a little sooner :)

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Re:Could the ancient Romans have built a digital computer? by TDL on Friday March 01, 2013 @11:58AM (#5305391)
I also believe there was extensive trade between Romans & Indian societies so it is entirely feasible that some exchange could have occurred.
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