Decimal the Roman numerals did, an intermediate base of 5. Notably, the polymath Archimedes (ca. 287–212 BC) invented a decimal positional system in his Sand Reckoner which was based on 10 and later led the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss to lament what heights science would have already reached in his days if Archimedes had fully realized the potential of his ingenious discovery. The Hittites hieroglyphs (since 15th century BC), just like the Egyptian and early numerals in Greece, was strictly decimal. Some non-mathematical ancient texts like the Vedas dating back to 1900–1700 BCE make use of decimals and mathematical decimal
Decimal separator Decimal separator A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form. Different countries officially designate different symbols for the decimal separator. The choice of symbol for the decimal separator also affects the choice of symbol for the thousands separator used in digit grouping, so the latter is also treated in this article. Any such symbol can be called a decimal mark, decimal marker or decimal sign. But symbol-specific names are also used; decimal point and decimal comma refer to an (either baseline or middle) dot and