The development of numbers has come a long way. About 4000 years ago, the Phoenicians on the east coast of the Mediterranean invented the alphabet. In the process of its spread, it has changed more or less. For example, ancient Greek letters and Hebrew letters are different. However, both ancient Greeks and Hebrews used letters of the alphabet to represent numbers in turn. Later, people also used English letters to represent numbers. For example, A, B, C and D represent L, 2, 3 and 4 in turn, and I, J, K and L represent 9, l0, 20 and 30. About 2000 years ago, the ancient Romans ruled a vast area around the Mediterranean across Europe, Asia and Africa, and directly extended to the island of Great Britain. They created a unique way to write numbers: I, II, III and III. If it is close to the right of a large number, it means that the two are added ",so Ⅳ means Ⅴ (that is," 5 ") MINUS I (that is," L "), and Ⅴ means Ⅴ plus I; Similarly, ⅶ and ⅷ represent ⅴ plus Ⅱ and ⅴ plus Ⅲ respectively, representing 7 and 8; ⅸ and represent "X (i.e.'10') minus I" and "X plus I" respectively, that is, 9 and 1 1. Symbols representing numbers are very important in writing. In Roman symbols, L stands for "50" and C stands for ". From left to right, it is M (that is, "l000"), CM ("1000" minus "100" equals "900"), XC ("100" minus "10" equals ". It stands for 2 196. The creation of these counting methods is a symbol of the progress of human civilization. However, they are not convenient enough after all. For example, Arabic numerals widely used around the world today are much simpler than Roman numerals. Interestingly, it was not Arabs who invented Arabic numerals, but Indians who first used L and 2 more than two thousand years ago. When they write, the rightmost number represents how many 1, the left number represents how many 10, and the left number represents how many 100, and so on. For example, 1994 means a * * with four 1, nine 10, nine 100 and 6544. It is difficult to distinguish "3500" from "35000". Around the 8th century AD, Indians invented another symbol representing "nothing": "0". So 3005 can clearly represent three "thousands", no "hundred", no "ten" and five "ones". It gradually spread to all parts of the world. Arabs first spread Indian numerals to West Asia, North Africa and Spain, which is why Europeans call them "Arabic numerals". It has been widely used in China for less than a century. However, numbers have a unique and long history in China. In the Banpo cultural site 7000-5000 years ago, some simple symbols carved on painted pottery are probably the most primitive characters and numbers. Three thousand years ago, there were special numbers representing "one, ten, hundred, thousand and ten thousand" on the Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Yin Ruins. About 3,000 years ago, Zhong Dingwen in the Western Zhou Dynasty also used the word "you", such as "600 50 99", or 659. Later, we arrived in China. It can be described as much the same. The beauty of numbers goes far beyond mathematics itself. Its generalization makes people easy to remember and talk. There are countless examples of "Twenty-four History", "Thirty-six Strategies", "Nine Planets", "Three Good Students", "Seven Wonders of the World" and "Group of 77". More importantly, it brings people endless fun in cultural life. Answer: Tanaka, 99 and Answer: White are all masterpieces that appeal to both refined and popular tastes. There are also many amazing examples of "number pairs" in couplets: there are many numbers embedded in the upper and lower couplets, one after another, which are natural. For example, the five elements, five parties and ten numbers skillfully summed up Zhuge Liang's later life. Take West Shu, call it barbarian, and reject it from the east, west, north and south. In the chancellorsville, Jin Mu is sealed with earth, and the water can strike fire. "But numbers also have their own troubles. Someone has to wear it under duress. In the past, when people used letters to represent numbers, some numbers were written like words. For example, people use the English letter E for 5 and O, which is exactly the same as the spelling of the English word "sorrow". Therefore, people think that 565 is an unlucky number. The ancient Greeks and Hebrews even created a set of methods to deliberately make the numbers represented by letters have some meaning. This method is called "astrology". Actually, it's just as nonsense as astrology.