The first apparent record of counting dates from 30,000 years ago. A leg-bone of a wolf was found in France containing fifty-five cuts, arranged in groups of five. It is not known what the cuts represented. [ Ancient Civilisations | Numbers and Measurement ] (source)
The earliest known standard of weight is the beqa, an ancient Egyptian unit which equals from less than 0.5 ounce to 7.5 ounces. It is still generally used in weighing gems, precious metals, and stones in troy weight. [ Ancient Egypt | Numbers and Measurement ]
The ounce is most familiar as a unit of weight equalling 28.35 grammes (avoirdupois measure), but in troy measure, it equals 31.1 grammes. As a unit of length, an ounce equals 0.016 inches, and in volume it equals 2/3 of a whiskey jigger.
In 1266, Henry III of England decreed that "an English penny, called a sterling, round and without any clippings, shall weight 32 wheatcorns in the middle of the ear. Twenty pence do make an ounce, and 12 ounces a pound". The English kings used troy (named for the French town Troyes) weight for currency measurements, and in 1527 it became the legal standard for minting coins.
One of the administrative changes that Edward I (1239-1307) introduced during his reign as King of England (1272-1307) was to recognize and legalize, in 1303, units of weight such as the ounce, pound, wey, stone, and hundredweight. Later, in 1335, these weight units were grouped together under the name avoirdupois, a French word meaning "goods of weight", intended mainly for use in trade.
A pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of gold. Precious metals like gold are weighed using troy weights, in which a pound consists of 12 ounces (5,760 grains). Objects such as feathers are weighed using avoirdupois weights, in which a pound consists of 16 ounces or 7,000 grains. (source)
The foot as a unit of length is defined today as 0.3048 metres, but during the time of Edward VI (1547–1553), the foot was defined as follows, according to a book published during his reign: "Stand at the door of a church on Sunday and bid sixteen men to stop, tall ones and small ones, as they happen to pass out. Then make them put their left feet one behind the other, and the length thus obtained shall be a right and lawful rood to measure the land with, and the sixteenth part of it shall be a right and lawful foot." (source)
In 1852, the first official calculation of the height of Mount Everest was performed. All six measurements that were made were different. Averaging the six results (between 28,990 feet and 29,026 feet), the result was 29,000 feet exactly. Unwilling to publish a figure that just looked like an estimate, the people who made the calculation arbitrarily added 2 feet to the value, giving a value of 29,002 feet. [ Numbers and Measurement | Geography ] (source)
A "light year" is a measure of distance, not time. It is defined as the distance light travels in one year. Light moves at a velocity of about 300,000 kilometres each second, so in one year, it travels about 9,500,000,000,000 kilometres. [ Physics and Physicists | The Universe | Numbers and Measurement ] (source)
The word "mile" comes from the Roman milia, "thousands". The Romans measured distances in paces, which were about five feet. So, milia passum, 1,000 paces or about 5,000 feet, was the length of a mile. [ The Roman Empire | English Words | Numbers and Measurement ] (source)
The length of a mile used to be 5,000 feet. However, in 1575 the British Parliament added 280 feet to this measurement, declaring the mile to be 1,760 yards or 5,280 feet, so that it could be divided evenly into furlongs. One furlong is 660 feet long, giving 8 furlongs to the mile. (source)
Until 1959, when the avoirdupois pound was established as 453.59237 grammes, the United States and Great Britain had different values for the pound. The American version was 453.5924277 grammes and the British pound 453.592338 grammes. Similarly, the British and American inches differ slightly (with the American inch 2.540005 centimetres, and the British inch 2.539998 centimetres).
Many European advances during the Middle Ages were made possible by the Moorish occupation of Spain. The most important was the use of Arabic numerals. The Moors also brought other discoveries to Europe, which is reflected by the fact that words such as "algebra", "lute", and "magazine" are of Arabic origin. The Moors also introduced to Europe the game of chess. [ The Middle Ages | English Words | Numbers and Measurement ]
Arabic numerals are not Arabic. While Europe obtained this system from the Arabs, the Arabs in turn obtained this system from the Hindus around the middle of the eighth century. The Hindu writer Aryabhata first described the new system in the year 499. [ Numbers and Measurement | Misconceptions ] (source)
Napoleon was not particularly short. He was 5 feet 6½ inches tall, which was a typical height at the time. This height is equal to 5 feet 2 inches in old French feet (pieds du roi), which led to confusion as to his true height. [ Numbers and Measurement | Misconceptions ] (source)
The number 10 is used as a convenient base to count with, but the Gauls of ancient France, the Mayas of Central America, and other peoples used a base of 20. The Sumerians, the Babylonians, and others after them used a base of 60—convenient because 60 can be evenly divided by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30. The use of base 60 survives in the division of hours into minutes and minutes into seconds, and the division of the circle into 360 (60 × 6) degrees. [ Mathematics and Measurement | Ancient Civilisations | Incas, Aztecs, and Maya ] (source)
The earliest known unit of length was used around 2,300 B.C. by megalithic tomb builders in ancient Britain. Called the megalithic yard, the name used by the builders is unknown, but its length was about 2.722 feet. [ Ancient Britain and Ireland | Mathematics and Mathematicians ] (source)
In the oldest surviving work about mathematics (the Rhind papyrus, written by the ancient Egyptian scribe Ahmes around 1650 B.C.), there is a section on arithmetic headed "Directions for Knowing all Dark Things". [ Ancient Egypt | Mathematics and Mathematicians ]
Euclid is the most successful textbook writer of all time. His Elements, written around 300 B.C., has gone through more than 1,000 editions since the invention of printing. [ Ancient Greek Science and Philosophy | Mathematics and Mathematicians | Literature ](source)
Euclid worked out virtually none of the theorems of "Euclidian" geometry, but rather collected the works of others. His great accomplishment was that his arrangement of the geometrical theorems known in his time was so logical that it can barely be improved on. (source)
Syracuse's leading citizen in the third century B.C. was the greatest scientist and mathematician of ancient times, Archimedes, nine of whose famous treaties on geometry and hydrostatics survive. When the Roman consul Marcellus conquered Syracuse, he instructed his men that Archimedes was not to be harmed. But Archimedes was run through by a sword when he begged a Roman soldier not to destroy geometrical figures he had drawn in the sand. (source)
The modern decimal position system, in which the placing of numerals indicates their value (units, tens, hundreds etc.), was the invention of the Hindus, around 800 A.D. Their invention of the sign for zero greatly simplified arithmetic computation. By comparison, the Roman numeral system containing no zero was awkward.
A billion in America is different from a billion in Great Britain. An American billion is a thousand million (1,000,000,000), but a British billion is a million million (1,000,000,000,000). Most of the other names for large numbers are also different between the U.S. and the U.K. The American names are now finding increasing usage in Great Britain, however. [ Mathematics and Mathematicians | English Words ] (source)
Gerbert of Aurillac, who became Pope Sylvester II (999-1003), attempted to introduce Arabic numerals into Christian Europe. These numerals facilitate calculations much easier than the Roman numerals in use at the time, but their use never caught on for a few more centuries. [ Mathematics and Mathematicians | Popes ]
King Richard I the Lion-Hearted passed the first law requiring standards for length and volume. These standards were made from iron and were kept by sherrifs and magistrates. [ Mathematics and Mathematicians | Medieval England ]
The largest number in the English language that with a word naming it is a googolplex, which is 1010^100, which would be written as 1 followed by 10100 zeroes. [ English Words | Numbers and Measurement ]
Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) was probably the most productive mathematician of all time, publishing enough mathematical papers to fill 90 volumes of books. Even though he became completely blind at the age of 60, he still published over 400 mathematical papers, most of which he dictated to a servant untrained in mathematics.
A theory put forward by Polish mathematicians Steven Banach and Alfred Tarski in the early 20th century states that there is a way of dividing a sphere into separate parts and rearrange them so that they fill all of a larger sphere without leaving any gaps. (source)
The Yuki Indians of California avoided being seen counting on their fingers by counting on the spaces between their fingers instead. (source)