Traveling through time with a house, I teach people all over the country how to farm

Chapter 157 Arabic Numerals

Several people sat down in the reception room and the maid served tea.

Zheng Zhiyuan spoke first: "Cousin, Zhimin said she wanted to follow you to the farm tomorrow, and you agreed to her."

Zheng Sisi nodded: "Yes, I agree. Minister Li's daughter Li Ziyan and He Qianqian from the Taifu Mansion will also go with us."

The third prince frowned but said nothing. After all, this was Zheng Sisi's business and he could not interfere.

He never cared about these ladies from wealthy families. He hoped that they would be obedient and not play any tricks, otherwise he would not let them go.

Zheng Sisi took out the formula table she had just written and handed it to the Third Prince, saying, "Third Prince, I was dizzy when I read the account book kept by Shopkeeper Cui yesterday. It was too complicated.

I have seen this calculation method in Master's book before, I wrote it down, do you think it can be used? "

The third prince took it and spread out a few sheets of paper to read carefully. Zheng Zhiyuan and Zhong Ruiyu also came over.

The first piece of paper had abbreviations and comparisons of numbers. They could still distinguish the traditional Chinese characters and abbreviations, but they were confused after seeing the distorted Arabic numerals.

Zheng Zhiyuan and Zhong Ruiyu were scratching their heads, so the third prince asked directly that they could understand the first and second lines, but what were the distorted symbols in the third line?

Zheng Sisi took the paper from the Third Prince and placed it directly on the table, pointing to a line of Arabic numerals and saying, "This is called Arabic numerals, and it was brought here along with the imported goods. I just think these characters are simple and easy to remember.

Look, this is our word "yi", which can be abbreviated as "yi" and the Arabic numeral "1". The abbreviated word "er" is "er" and the Arabic numeral "2"......."

Zheng Sisi explained it to everyone, and then told everyone how to write Arabic numerals and accompanied them with a number song: "1 is like a brush writing, 2 is like a duck loving to swim, 3 is like an ear listening to sounds, 4 is like a small flag fluttering in the wind, 5 is like a scale weighing things, 6 is like a whistle blowing, 7 is like a hoe loving to work, 8 is like a gourd holding wine, 9 is like a whistle held upside down, and 0 is like an egg that is round and round."

Zheng Zhiyuan said: "Wow, this song is catchy and easy to remember."

The Third Prince muttered to himself while gesturing with his fingers on the table. After writing ten numbers, he said, "After adding the song, I confirmed that it is very vivid and easy to remember. The characters are also easy to write. How do I remember the numbers after ten?"

Zheng Sisi said: "The numbers that follow are combinations, like ten is a combination of 1 and 0, eleven is a combination of 1 and 1... and so on. Then comes the number one hundred, which is a combination of 1 and two zeros."

Zheng Sisi simply asked the maid to bring paper and pen, and wrote down the numbers from 1 to 100, then 101, 102, ... and then to 200, 300, 400... 1000.

After seeing this, the clever third prince also realized that more numbers could be combined with more words.

Zheng Sisi asked them to digest the number song and writing method of Arabic numerals.

After they were familiar with it, she took out the second piece of paper, which was an addition formula table.

Zheng Sisi pointed to the small cross “+” in the middle of 1+1=2 and told everyone that it was a plus sign, and the two horizontal bars “=” were equal signs, and then taught them to recite the addition formula table.

This mnemonic table was not difficult for the three of them. They were all from wealthy families, had learned it since childhood, and also used it in daily life, so they memorized it quickly.

The third one was a subtraction table, which was just the addition table with the numbers reversed. They figured out what the “-” sign was and knew it at a glance.

When Zheng Sisi took out the fourth piece of paper, the Third Prince and the two men looked at each other, shook their heads, and looked at Zheng Sisi again.

Zheng Sisi said to herself, if you can understand this one, unless you are a time traveler like her, you won’t know it, because the multiplication table is written on the fourth piece of paper.