The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c6.25

c6.25

² This again suggests the *Psammites*, or *De harenae numero* as it is called in the 1544 edition of the *Opera* of Archimedes, a work in which the great Syracusan proposes to show to the king "by geometric proofs which you can follow, that the numbers which have been named by us . . . are sufficient to exceed not only the number of a sand-heap as large as the whole earth, but one as large as the universe." For a list of early editions of this work see D. E. Smith, *Rara Arithmetica*, Boston, 1909, p. 227.