Hindu–Arabic numeral system system is based upon ten (originally nine) different glyphs. The symbols (glyphs) used to represent the system are in principle independent of the system itself. The glyphs in actual use are descended from Brahmi numerals and have split into various typographical variants since the Middle Ages. These symbol sets can be divided into three main families: Western Arabic numerals used in the Greater Maghreb and in Europe, Eastern Arabic numerals (also called "Indic numerals") used in the Middle East, and the Indian numerals used in South Asia. The Hindu-Arabic numerals were invented by mathematicians in India. Perso-Arabic mathematicians called them
Numerals in Unicode three Unicode characters semantically represent mathematical constants: , the , and . Other mathematical constants can be represented using characters that have multiple semantic uses. For example, although Unicode includes a character for "natural exponent" ℯ (U+212F) its UCS canonical name derives from its glyph: ; and the mathematical constant π, 3.141592.., is represented by . The Western Arabic numerals also appear among the compatibility characters as rich text variant forms including bold, double-struck, monospace, sans-serif and sans-serif bold. and fullwidth variants for legacy vertical text support. Rich text parenthesized, circled and other variants are also included in the blocks: