Mayan number system

The Mayan number system dates back to the fourth century and was approximately 1,000 years more advanced than the Europeans of that time. This system is unique to our current decimal system, which has a base 10, in that the Mayan's used a vigesimal system, which had a base 20. This system is believed to have been used because, since the Mayan's lived in such a warm climate and there was rarely a need to wear shoes, 20 was the total number of fingers and toes, thus making the system workable. Therefore two important markers in this system are 20, which relates to the fingers and toes, and five, which relates to the number of digits on one hand or foot.

The Mayan system used a combination of two symbols. A dot (.) was used to represent the units (one through four) and a dash (-) was used to represent five. It is thought that the Mayan's may have used an abacus because of the use of their symbols and, therefore, there may be a connection between the Japanese and certain American tribes (Ortenzi, 1964). The Mayan's wrote their numbers vertically as opposed to horizontally with the lowest denomination on the bottom. Their system was set up so that the first five place values were based on the multiples of 20. They were 1 (200), 20 (201), 400 (202), 8,000 (203), and 160,000 (204). In the Arabic form we use the place values of 1, 10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000.










It has been suggested that counters may have been used, such as grain or pebbles, to represent the units and a short stick or bean pod to represent the fives. Through this system the bars and dots could be easily added together as opposed to such number systems as the Romans but, unfortunately, nothing of this form of notation has remained except the number system that relates to the Mayan calendar.

For further study: The 360 day calendar also came from the Mayan's who actually used base 18 when dealing with the calendar. Each month contained 20 days with 18 months to a year. This left five days at the end of the year which was a month in itself that was filled with danger and bad luck. In this way, the Mayans had invented the 365 day calendar which revolved around the solar system.


2010 in Mayan numeral system looks like this

Camp

Hi everyone, this is my personal reflections about the camp.

1) I learnt:

. teamwork
. punctuality
. responsibility
. determination
. a sense of industry and competency
. a feeling of connectedness to others and society
. a belief in my ability to make decisions
. a stable identity
. confidence
. how to get along with my peers
. look at challenging situations differently and instead of giving up, finding a way around them
. better sportsmanship and listening skills
. how to be on my own without someone with me all the time
. to have more patience and to appreciate the things I have
. leadership
. organization
. make my bed
. keep my stuff clean
. respect
. how to handle pressure
. independence
. decision-making
. social and emotional skills
. character building and values
from all the activities in the camp.

2) All the above pointers helped me:

. bring up my grades in behavior
. made new friends
. gained new skills
. have a better idea of what I am good at

3)If I were to have another chance to try all the activities, I would choose zipline



Please click on the comic to see the full comic

This is because I love to fly and we can race against the air and we can demolish our fear of heights.

4) One thing I would like to change is I must focus on what I am doing and not think about something else. This way, I can accomplish our tasks even more faster.



This is my experience in the orientation camp:



When the trainer told us to be in the dining hall in a specific time, I was in hurry. Due to that, I threw my day pack from the top of the double decker bed. I did not realize that my water bottle was in it. When I came out of the dormitory, I soon noticed my water bottle was leaking.

When I open my bag, half of my bag was full of water! My notebook, my pen and other stuff in it was wet. Luckily, I gave my wallet to miss Seah for her to take care of it. Or then, my wallet too will be wet. So I left my day pack outside the dormitory and hurried to the dining hall with my pair of shorts on my hands. During the activities, the trainer told us to change into our shorts. I quickly when to the toilet to change into my shorts. The I went out with my trackpants on my hand.

After we finished the activities in the Milo pool like the slide and the rafting, we went back to our dormitory to change into our trackpants for the night hike. I soon realized that my trackpants was missing. I ran to miss Seah and told what happened. After having our dinner, Miss Seah and I went to the area near the Milo pond. However, to our dismay, my trackpants was not there!

Miss Seah later comforted me that she would lend me her trackpants. So I was happy I could do the CRC and the rock climbing the next day. All thanks to Miss Seah.

5 January 2010: #2 Team Building Challenge - Debrief (II) Personal Reflection

1)I understood that ‘Forging Excellence’ is about bringing in excellence into me and do my best regarding any situations. We have to work with determination and perseverance. That is what I understand about the school value, “ Forging excellence”.
2)Collaboration, not being a loner, and workmanship are the strengths which help me bond with the class and help me to achieve excellence. I do hope I practice many good qualities those would eventually become my strength.
3)I think I must try to be confident to be an outspoker and not try to keep my ideas to myself. The reason why I am keeping my ideas to myself is I am afraid my group mates do not agree to it. I will try to stop this habit as soon as I can.
4)I will try to give in as much ideas as I can to my class and I will participate with great anticipation. I will try to give my best shot.

4th January 2010 Bridge Building Activity - Debrief (II) Personal Reflection

1) I felt we should have done the planning before we ate lunch so we do not need to change the plan while building the bridge. I also think that some of my group members must cooperate with each another. However, since we have the speed management, we could finish the project in time.

2)I think I have done pretty well in cooperating with the group members by giving some ideas which would contribute to the project. I guess I have interacted well with my group members.

3) I learnt that we must be so cooperative in sharing information with my group mates classmates in projects through this project and in future projects I will try in bringing up as many ideas as I can that will be needed to complete the project.

4)Yes, I did experience some discomforts. This is because, as I said, some of my group members were playing and daydreaming instead of helping out in completing the project. Because of that, I had a lot of work to do and that made us a bit slow in completing the project.

5)I did not complain about the difficulties too much and just focused on doing a part in completing the task and I tried my very best on completing the task.

*Picture taken from http://www.duke-energy.com/investors/publications/annual/ar-2007/_img/building-bridges/0.jpg