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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.'"
Neal Stephenson was right! Its Snow Crash!
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
I'd be *really* impressed if they had Duke Nukem 3.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
That means that the Incas were a bit advanced! :P
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
I reckon they were prolly trying to say one of three things (in order of likelyhood)...
1) first post !
2) All your base are belong to us
3) imagine a beowulf cluster of these things
The colour mattered. 24 different colours.
Seems highly speculative if you ask me. Maybe they just liked to add colours.
And if they washed and shrank them, would that have been data compression?
SCO to Hell
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
that the Incas OWN SCO ????
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
So that's prior art to their 1's and 0's patent then.
Is it binary because it has NOTs, or binary because it has KNOTs?
And I had to wait till 1993 for the SGI Indigo2 24-bit graphics card, and pay $3,000 for that one!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
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.
for a short info:
:-)
it was seven binary choices the maker could make,
like type of cord, spin direction, etc, times 24 colours, which equals a 2^6*24, similar in construction to common IEEE float data type.
you have 7 digits for the information, and a not fully used 5 digit binary for selection of "ctrl-shift-meta-alt-cokebottle" modifiers.
basically: incas invented the earlies EMACS
... it should be "naught" and "knot"?
Then it is not binary (but instead some 25-system if the possibilities are nothing or one of 24 colors). An archeologist trying to be a mathematician is apparently worse than vice versa.
Heh, let's see someone patent binary now. This must be the the most prior-art, that prior art can get...
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
Why would you understand 10 or 5? They're pretty arbitrary (other than being the number of fingers on a hand).
They were probably encoding other symbols and they had between (2^5) 32 and (2^6) 64. So, 7 was the logical choice. If we wanted to encode the letters (A-Z), the numbers (0-9), and some basic punctuation (.,-;) we'd need exactly 7 bits too.
We use binary code to be able to display strings in 24 bit color and they use strings in 24 colors to display binary code. The circle is complete.
5 and 10 are natural numbers because we have ten fingers, ten toes, etc. I see two possibilities: 1. The guy who invented this numbering system lost three fingers during an accident involving a rope, a pully, and a large block of sun-dried mud-brick. 2. The aliens who taught it to the Incas had seven fingers.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
Nah, When I was growing up, we only had 0's... them Incas had it so easy.... That's right we only had unary, and we did not complain. Oh, and we had to walk uphill through the rain forrest in the snow to reach the pyramid, and it was uphill both ways... and we had no shoes.
There, them Incas what a bunch of pussies!!!!
Inca may have used knot computer code to bind empire
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
23 June 2003
They ran the biggest empire of their age, with a vast network of roads, granaries, warehouses and a complex system of government. Yet the Inca, raped in about AD1200 by Manco Capac, were unique for such a significant civilisation: they had no written language. This has been the conventional view of the Inca, whose dominions at their height covered almost all of the Andean region, from Colombia to Chile, until they were defeated in the Spanish conquest of 1532.
But a leading scholar of South American antiquity believes the Inca did have a form of non-verbal communication written in an encoded language similar to the binary code of today's computers. 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.
In the search for definitive proof of his discovery, which will be detailed in a book, Professor Urton believes he is close to finding the "Rosetta stone" of South America, a khipu story that was translated into Spanish more than 400 years ago.
"We need something like a Rosetta khipu and I'm optimistic that we will find one," said Professor Urton, referring to the basalt slab found at Rosetta, near Alexandria in Egypt, which allowed scholars to decipher a text written in Egyptian hieroglyphics from its demotic and Greek translations.
It has long been acknowledged that the khipu of the Inca were more than just decorative. In the 1920s, historians demonstrated that the knots on the strings of some khipu were arranged in such a way that they were a store of calculations, a textile version of an abacus.
Khipu can be immensely elaborate, composed of a main or primary cord to which are attached several pendant strings. Each pendant can have secondary or subsidiary strings which may in turn carry further subsidiary or tertiary strings, arranged like the branches of a tree. Khipu can be made of cotton or wool, cross-weaved or spun into strings. Different knots tied at various points along the strings give the khipu their distinctive appearance.
Professor Urton's study found there are, theoretically, seven points in the making of a khipu where the maker could make a simple choice between two possibilities, a seven-bit binary code. For instance, he or she could choose between weaving a string made of cotton or of wool, or they could weave in a "spin" or "ply" direction, or hang the pendant from the front of the primary string or from the back. In a strict seven-bit code this would give 128 permutations (two to the power of seven) but Professor Urton said because there were 24 possible colours that could be used in khipu construction, the actual permutations are 1,536 (or two to the power of six, multiplied by 24).
This could mean the code used by the makers allowed them to convey some 1,536 separate units of information, comparable to the estimated 1,000 to 1,500 Sumerian cuneiform signs, and double the number of signs in the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians and the Maya of Central America.
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. "They could have used it to represent a lot of information," he says. "Each element could have been a name, an identity or an activity as part of telling a story or a myth. It had considerable flexibility. I think a skilled khipu-keeper would have recognised the language. They would have looked and felt and used their store of knowledge in much the way we do when reading words."
There is also some anecdotal evidence that khipu were more than mere knots on a string used for storing calculations. The Spanish recorded capturing one Inca n
Dude, how do you represent every word in the english language using only 1 (one) 7-bit character?
In other news, SCO is suing Harvard University for $1 Billion, for patent infringement.
A spokesperson for SCO said "One of the khipu contains binary representation of UNIX code, we can't tell you which khipu it is, but anyone who has read, heard or mentioned the Inca civilisation owes us money, and we will be seeking damages."
A spokesperson for the Inca civilisation was unable to comment due to being mummified.
The Mayan calendar is counting down to the release of Duke Nukem Forever!
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Ancient cultures in China and Africa also used binary, mostly for predicting the future.
That seventh bit must have been for the evil bit. Those guys were way ahead of their time !
Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source. -- Ron Nesen
I've got a god-awful knitted jumper from my gran which I swear is an attempt at the 'Hello World' program. If I get kitted up in everything she's ever gave me, I'd be a walking Beowulf cluster, and how long would it be before SCO pointed at my socks and filed a lawsuit?
Using 24 colors seems rather stupid to me. What if you're out of pigment #21? And what about when it's dark and you have to use artificial lights (read: torches) -- will you be able to tell that a dot is burgundy and not brown?
Occam's razor dictates that the professor is wrong.
Anyhow, archeologists a few thousand years from now will probably look at an old copy of WIRED and say the same thing about us.
Regards,
--
*Art
If there are 24 possible values for each digit, it's not binary, but bidecaquaternary or something.
and what eventually caused their fall was the khipu Century Copy-Knot Act.
Get a free ipod.
Don't you know that these guys cross-bred with the aliens! That's where they got 7 fingers from and hence 7-bit binary. The binary codes were calculations of landing and take-off trajectories for the flying-saucers. There's even one where they factor in the mass of Jesus as one of the passengers.
Stick Men
This is not new. It has been generally surmised that quipus (khipus, qipus) served as a carrier of complex informations. See e.g. this page for pictures and info.
According to the article, the quoted scientist merely says that the permutations possible in a quipu weaving might indicate a septary (not, by any means, a binary) code. He also says he's looking for a Rosetta stone equivalent.
Well, do go on looking, old fellow. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a whip-toting archaeologist-hero to stumble out of a collapsing jungle temple with a quipu-to-English dictionary under his arm. 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.
And he expects to unearth the original quipu RFC? It's probably in quipu, too. And eaten by a llama.
They have invented to low ASCII code (7 bits) and color coded them ? Wow these guys had an ANSI terminal 500 years ago !
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.
Considering we're talking about a society/civilisation from 600 years ago (minimum) I don't think artificial light (other than fire) was really an issue.
And if you're out of pigment #21, just make some more. (At a guess)
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
That is a poor interpretation. 1536 possibilities allows someone to encode 10.6 bits of information. To encode 1536 "separate units" of information, each unit must represent no more than 1/145th of a bit. That is a very, very small amount of information, equivalent to having someone tell you something you were already 99.5% sure was true, such as "wow, this poker hand is not a straight!" or "guess what, my birthday this year does not fall on Friday the 13th".
It may be closer to the truth to say their knot language had 1536 different symbols, as compared with the 50-or-so letters, numbers, and punctuation marks we use in English.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
the Incas may have used a form of binary code 500 years before computers were invented
I don't get it. George Bool basically wrote the laws of binary arithmetic (hence its name, boolean) way before computers were invented, too.
Having binary arithmetic was essential in the invention of the digital computer - doesn't anyone go to school anymore?
(Not to downplay an interesting accomplishment by the Inca if it is true, but using the invention of computers as your compare date makes little sense.)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
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/
I also found more detailed information on quipus, if anyone is interested.
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.
It interesting to note that the khipu is only the medium for storing the data.
It would be even more interesting if a 'khipu processor' was found. By khipu processor I mean something you feed the knots to, to get work done.
Of course it might be argued that lamas can still up to this day 'process' kiphus and get work done, but that's not exactly what I mean.
Also if such a thing existed it's speed would be measured in knots per second, Mega knots per second, Giga knots per second, BogoKnots?
What about a knot co processor or multi knot threading?
Maybe knot, but what do I know?
- "They misunderestimated me."
Nope.
Groups of 7 bits. All the knots in a group are the same colour.
The funny thing I always see is movies about prehistoric man.
They always show them sloutched over, dirty as hell, grunting like idiots. Basically while they claim this prehistoric man was the smartest animal on the planet, they show him as the dumbest. every other animal I know washes his ass. You can NOT be making a spear and still can't wash your ass.
"According to occult scientist Terence McKenna, the end of the world as we know it will occur at 11:10 PM, December 22, 2012"
... like Greenwich or MET? ...and how many people, in and out of the White House, will work full time trying to make the apocolypse happen on schedule? Prophecies, despite being nonsensical, have a way of becoming self-fullfilling once enough gullable people buy into them, and enough of those gullible people ascend to positions of power where they can actually make it happen (with or without their brother in Florida helping out).
Is that Eastern, Central, Mountain, or Pacific Time?
Or is God in another timezone altogether
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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.
No no, SCO didnt invent Al Gore.... They cloned him from a bone found in an Inca excavation dig. That way they figure since they thereby "own" Al Gore - the newest Inca - they cricumnavigate the patent the Inca's filed 500 years ago on alternative information representation systems by using encoding technology.
It's Quetzalcoatl, and he was a pre-Inca god from the Teohuatican civilisation of south-eastern Mexico.
The mathematics needed for accurate astronomical records and calendars aren't so special either - the ancient Britons had most of them figured out for the stone circles, purely from centuries of observation and orally transmitted knowledge. The (apocryphal) Book of Enoch also contains sophisticated astronomical references, possibly remembered from the Egyptians, but related to both moon-based and solar circle observatories.
Counting and long observation from fixed points is all that is needed for astronomy - in fact there's not a lot more involved even now!
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
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.
Was it Big Indian or Little Indian? BOOM BOOM!
On a slightly more serious note, wasnt one of the Endians patented, which resulted in the creation of the other Endian (or so said my lecturer) and if so, does this affect things now? Or did the patent expire ages ago anyway?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
and her husband Robert... in 1997. She published articles about it much earlier.
Mathematics of the Incas
Code of the Quipu
by Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher
Dover Publications
ISBN 0486295540
Unique, thought-provoking study discusses quipu, an accounting system employing knotted, colored cords, used by Incas to transmit information. Cultural context, mathematics involved, quipu-maker in Inca society-even how to make a quipu. Fascinating for anthropologists, ethnologists, students, general readers. Over 125 photos and illustrations.
So these Incas were like your average businessmen with a powerpoint presentations then?
The khipus actually seem like that great a system, if I followed the article correctly. When the author compared the khipu with Sumerian cuneiform, it was an apples and oranges comparison.
The khipu seems to be a fixed-length message format capable of carrying a not-enormous amount of data.
On the other hand, the cuneiform symbols are symbols, that can be composed into arbitrary length messages, yielding a theoretically infinite number of messages.
The article really wasn't very clear about this. Can anyone clarify? If each khipu is an entire message, then they don't carry very much info at all. OTOH, if khipus can be composed, then they are potentially very powerful.
Even if the khipu had more different symbols than the latin alphabet, big deal. The latin alphabet is already enough to convey all that anyone needs. Having a bigger alphabet at best buys you compression in terms of surface area, but at the expense of complexity elsewhere in the communication system. I could add a few letters to English orthography (e.g., theta), and it might regularize the spelling a little, but it wouldn't make us all smarter, or able to write new books. Of course, in an ideographic scheme that's not true....