"[I]t is one of the mistakes of scholars to believe that they are the sole transmitters of knowledge. ...[T]he characters, the methods of calculating, the improvements that took place from time to time, the zero when it appeared, and the customs as to solving business problems, would all have been made known from generation to generation along... trade routes from the Orient to the Occident. [I]t was to the tradesman and the wandering scholar that the spread of such learning was due, rather than to the school man."
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The Hindu-Arabic Numerals
The Hindu-Arabic Numerals by David Eugene Smith and was published in 1911 to, as mentioned in the preface of the book, "bring together the fragmentary narrations and to set forth the general problem of the origin and development of these numerals."
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