historical-nonfiction:

It’s time for a facts list! This one delves into mathematical history:

• The word “math” is from the Proto-Indo-European word *me, which means “to cut grass” and is related to the word “mow.” 
  
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1647–1716) was a universal genius and a bit of an oddball who used both the cap symbol (∩) and the dot ( · ) for the multiplication symbol. While the dot is still sometimes used, the cap symbol is now most often used to indicate intersection in set theory.
• While the Babylonians were the first to use multiplication tables over 4,000 years ago, their tables were based on base 60.
  
• The oldest known tables using base 10 (similar to modern mathematics) were the Chinese, dating to about 305 BCE.
  
• In 628 CE, Indian philosopher Brahmagupta wrote a landmark text on mathematics called “The Opening of the Universe.” In it, he proposes a multiplication system called gomutrika, which he says is “like the trajectory of a cow’s urine.”
• Before Arabic numerals made it to Europe in the 1200s, medieval Europe used Roman numbers, which were straightforward for simple addition equations, but were extremely difficult to multiply or divide.
• In 1980, Shakuntala Devi from India entered the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s fastest multiplier when she correctly multiplied two 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds.