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.'"

Comments

Why are we so surprized?

[tizzyD]

We tend to have such an ego about ourselves. We think that we are the only ones who've ever had running septic systems, who moved mountains, and now, it appears, to use binary. Think: how else to you code data on a string? Our ancestors are not all that stupid. They helped us get to where we are today.

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?!

Re:Why are we so surprized?

[CommieLib]

C.S. Lewis had a term for this: "snobbery of chronology". We, as a people, have a tendency to forget that people everywhere, always, are blindingly clever, and that the only reason we have, for example, cell phones, is that we have had a continuous line of development rather than one interrupted by plague, mass migration, etc. Take a little while and study archaeo-astronomy and this becomes clear.

Not unique

[Ceriel Nosforit]

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.

Analysis

[Gothmolly]

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].

Knots in strings are not the same thing...

[Roblem]

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.

Re:Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they use the damn wheel on very short , irregular mountain roads, connected via unstable rope bridges?

Re:5, 7, and 10

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Old news

[RevMike]

after independently inventing the wheel, they used it for children's toys exclusively.

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...

1. Naturally occuring staple foods - usually grains - that were easy to domesticate
2. Large wild animals that were easy to domesticate and useful as draft animals
3. 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.