Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/112

OF LONG AGO numerator greater than 1, with the single exception of ⅔. Instead of thinking of ¾ as we do, the priest and Ahmes thought of ½ + ¼; and instead of thinking of ⅞, they thought of ½ + ¼ + ⅛.

So it is no wonder that Ahmes had a great deal of trouble in learning fractions, and it is no wonder that he never learned how to work with fractions as we work with them.

Not only did the people of that time use only fractions with numerators 1, like ½, ⅓, ¼, and 1/5, but for more than two thousand years after Ahmes died these fractions were commonly used in Egypt. They were also used in Babylon and in various other countries.

Nearly two thousand years after Ahmes studied in the temple on the banks of the great river which makes Egypt the fertile country that it is, there lived in Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile, a boy named Heron. He was interested in machines and in measuring heights and distances, and he made friends with the scholars in Alexandria who studied the stars. He visited the Great Pyramid, listened to the stories of its building and its purpose, and came in contact with 85