Another post from betting market company Polymarket read: “BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani to require all New York elementary school students to learn Arabic numerals.” The post has almost 14 million views.
Another post from betting market company Polymarket read: “BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani to require all New York elementary school students to learn Arabic numerals.” The post has almost 14 million views.
I think your confusion is the other side of what the article was discussing.
The problem is, there have been a lot of number systems in the past. The one we currently use is based on the Arabic system. In common usage you would simply call them numbers. But in a technical sense, to distinguish from other numbering systems past and present, they’re also called Arabic Numerals because that’s their origin.
Clearly this ignores the fact Arabic is still around and using real Arabic numbers and that is both confusing and maybe problematic. But I think the technical reason it sticks around is to acknowledge their source and have a more specific term when there is a need
While the origin of Arabic numerals is actually Indian.
Arabic Numerals is ambiguous. We don’t use eastern Arabic numerals in our schools.