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Incas Used Binary?
Abhijeet Chavan writes "An article in the Independent
reports that a leading scholar believes the Incas may have used a form of binary code 500 years before computers were invented.
'Gary Urton, professor of anthropology at Harvard University, has re-analysed the complicated knotted strings of the Inca - decorative objects called khipu - and found they contain a seven-bit binary code capable of conveying more than 1,500 separate units of information...If Professor Urton is right, it means the Inca not only invented a form of binary code more than 500 years before the invention of the computer, but they used it as part of the only three-dimensional written language.'"
The more we learn, the more we forget. For example, who can tell me the best mix for bronze? Not many now. How about what's best to plant after sowing rye for two years? As we continue to move into a more technological society, there is quite a bit of knowledge we are losing. Remember the famous ancient battery?
I'd suggest that if we got off of our superiority high horse, we'd find that we've always been quite ingenious. 7-bit though, that's what I find interesting. Wonder where 7 bits comes from. 10 or 5 --that I'd understand. 7, perhaps someone who'd been in a terrible accident?!
...tizzyd
Think about it for more than 0.5 seconds why don't you. ASCII code is only 7 bit and it can represent every word in the English (and many other) languages.Just because you have a 7 bit code does not mean you cant repeat values made up from that code.
Next time think before you say someone doesn't know what they are talking about and make yourself a fool.
The Chinese I Ching uses 6 bit binary to map 64 symbols, one bit essentially being a 'yes' or 'no' answer from a form of oracle. There's a bit more math behind it, but that's the core of it.
The symbols provide an array of wisedom and advice for those who map them.
Oddly enough, Terence McKenna managed to calculate the end of the world to December 21, 2012 using I Ching, while the Incas (Or was it Mayas? I confuse them.) calculated it to the same date. - Behold the powers of binary.
All rites reversed 2010
24 discrete colors = 24 additional bits, so it's NOT a 7bit binary system, its a 31bit system... if you can even call it that. Where the heck did they get the artcile summary from? Next, I'll come up with a new "binary" system that uses 26 strange, mystical symbols from [A-Z].
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If there are 24 possible values for each digit, it's not binary, but bidecaquaternary or something.
And for those who'd like to understand the joke above
--- SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! ---
Snow Crash, in the book of that name, is a virus that infects programmers if they just look at a certain document.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
First off I wouldnâ(TM)t really consider binary an âoeinventedâ numerical system. I would only consider the roman system wacky enough to be invented. Also we are talking about labeling things with knots in strings right? Or did they work out rules for binary math? Of course they did have a nice data compression algorithm what with 7 bit binary encoding 1536 items. Of course if you read the article you find none of this is true. They used colored strings with knots in them to label things. Big deal! Knots in strings are not the same thing as a math system nor should they be compared one to one with Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Why would they use the damn wheel on very short , irregular mountain roads, connected via unstable rope bridges?
Remember, the Incas were one of the more institutionally stupid (and thus, extinct) civilizations in history - after independently inventing the wheel, they used it for children's toys exclusively.
A cart will do you hardly any good in the Andes given the screwy terrain.
Anyway, thank the Incas for chocolate (and coffee too i believe).
If you have a choice out of 24 colors this leads to 24^1 possibilitys which equals 24....... :) .... ... Maybe they left a knot out or only have 6 knots....
So you have a code space of 24 times 2^7
The article is a bit fuzzy on this point as it mentions 24 times 2^6
In any way it is way less then your 39 bits....
If it was 32 colors (2^5) this would lead to a total of 2^(5+7)=4096 (or in the articles case 2^(5+6)=2048)) possibilities. Or 12 (or 11) bits.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
10 is actually *not* a natural base to work with - it's quite unfriendly to working in small fractions (try adding one half + one third on your ten fingers). More natural bases to use if you're a culture seriously working out math for the first time are 12 (evenly divisible by 2,3,4) or 60 (divisible by 2,3,4,5). [pssst - look at a clock]. Nobody who had to do calculations for a living would have picked base 10 - I'm sure it was a management decision.
I saw a program where another professor (I find this a bit confusing - professor in America is a lecturer right? In Ireland Professor is reeeeaaaallll high up the food chain), tried to prove that the Incas used giant mirrors to create temperatures high enough to melt rock and create the perfect fitting buildings they have
.... and mad.
He failed to ignite a small stick, and sounded utterly unconvincing
While I know the babylonians had batteries and the Incas were well and truly advanced, there are nutters proposing all sorts of things. It probably IS a code - but perhaps one like the hanky code (only example I could think of sorry), where the colors signified entire concepts rather than some sort of grammar.
In summation: this guy could oh so easily be a wacko
Johns: Well, how does it look now? Riddick: Looks clear.
Nope.
Groups of 7 bits. All the knots in a group are the same colour.
in that link you send us there is the reason why they didn't use the wheel. Did you see the mountains? Did you see the slopes? To them a wheel wouldn't have had much to offer.
Well, rememeber it isn't my theory, it's Terence McKenna's. McKenna was an occultist who died in 2000. As an occultist myself, I find his work to be quite fascinating. Remember that everything you read in the occult field you have to take with a large grain of salt and then pick and choose what you believe for yourself -- even if it's nothing. That's something anyone who's studied the occult for any length of time will automatically tell you when you're just getting started.
My journal has hot
It is a pretty consistent observation that lots of cultures invented the wheel, but only those that had access to high quality draft animals used it. Remember that the horse and other draft animals (oxen, donkey, etc.) were extinct in the new world until (re)introduced by the Europeans in 1492.
A great book on the subject is Guns, Germs, Steel: The Fate of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. Diamond argues that two dominant cultures have arisen - A Western culture that traces its roots to Fertile Crescent in modern day Iraq and the an Eastern culture that traces its roots to the Yellow River Valley. In both of these places nature and geography conspired to create a package of tools that allowed these cultures to spread.
Both these places had the following...
- Naturally occuring staple foods - usually grains - that were easy to domesticate
- Large wild animals that were easy to domesticate and useful as draft animals
- Room to spread out while using the same tools
In contrast, the natives of the Americas had only a single staple grain - corn - and that one took thousands of years longer than wheat, barley, oats, and rice to domesticate and they had no draft animals. As an added gotcha, when the American natives did manage to domesticate corn, there were barriers to spreading out. For instance, the people of Mexico - Aztec, Mayan, Toltec - would need to pack up and cross the American Southwestern deserts, then the great plains (which can't be farmed easily without steel plows), then the Appalachian mountains, before reaching readily farmable land in the Eastern USA. The Chinese and Middle Eastern peoples could spread all the way to Korea, India, North Africa, and Europe without hitting that much of a barrier.How about their great knowledge of astronomy. The moon has 28 days in a cycle and 7 days for each quarter to appear. Even more natural since even 3 toed sloths, spiders and turtles could agree on this one. :o)
For a culture to have picked up a system of writing based on the first guy using it having lost a few digits... Stranger things have happened.