By Alfred W. Crosby
This is a history of how western society incorporated quantification into it's daily life. Numbers went from being magical things in and of themselves to being quantities that measured something else.
Out go Roman Numerals. In come Indo-Arabic digits.
The clock, the ruler and algebra dramatically changed our lives. And not without controversy. Some questioned the necessity of clocks and calendars-- "My serfs know when it's morning, noon & night, spring & fall."
Visualization, Music, Painting, Book Keeping all underwent dramatic changes once they were learnt in terms of quantification.
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