When we are beginning readers, we read each letter of each word left to right and sound it out. When we become experienced readers, we read the words as units. In fact, our brains autoprocess some of the fluff words (the, of, etc) to the point that we are not even conscious of them. There is an interesting demonstration of this, where one is supposed to quickly count the number of "f"s that occur in a paragraph. More often than not, people will tend to miss the "f"s in the word "of", because our brains shield us from perceiving the word. Even when you know the trick, you have to be really careful not to miss any of the "of"s. At any rate, I think some of this applies to numbers as well. Once we learn how to read numbers, we simply scan them as units, not concerned with the digits unless we need to be. When we read: State and local agencies had 708022 full-time sworn personnel and 311474 full-time civilian employees in 2000. Certainly, we read the words left to right, but we don't read the digits of the numbers left to right any more than we read the letters of the words left to right. The numbers and words are absorbed as units. We only become interested in the individual characters when we run into a difficulty (new word, misspelling) or have need of precise information. thereareevenscriptslikeancientgreekwheretherearenovisiblecuessuch aspunctuationwordbreaksorcasetodistinguishwordsfromcharacters eveninthismostadverseofconditionsyourbraincanpickoutwordsfrom theseaofcharactersasyouwillrealizewhenyouhavereadthisparagraph .left-to-right reading text Arabic in embedded often are right-to-left read numbers ,example foR .units as read are numbers and words the since ,difference of lot whole a make n'twould it ,text within words reading of direction the from different was numbers or words within characters reading of direction the if that think even I ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Guy" <rkg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> To: <ham>; "math-fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Cc: <davis@math.toronto.edu>; <mrcsgardner@hotmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 10:28 AM Subject: Re: [math-fun] keeping things in order
I think it's entirely due to the differences in writing. Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi from right to left. Most of the rest from left to right -- is this due to an inherent right- or left-handedness?
The arabic system (and perhaps even more so the Iraqi one which goes back nearly 4000 years) was obviously superior for purposes of calculation, so was gratefully borrowed by the Western world. So we got used to the less logical way of putting the big numbers first. There is a practical advantage -- (provided you read from left to right) that you get to know the most significant digits first (tho not how significant until you get to the end).