NUMBER STORIES
how you would divide 1728 by 144, using the new method,” and Filippo then divided almost the same way that we do.
Filippo lived just as Europe was beginning to pass from the old “scratch method”, in which the figures were scratched out, or canceled, after they had been used, and was about to adopt a method very much like ours.
144)1728(12
144
28
288
288
FILIPPO’S NEW METHOD OF DIVIDING 1728 BY 144
Notice that Filippo used one more number (28) than we should and that he did not write the quotient above the dividend as we do. This was the second important step towards our modern method of long division
The “scratch method” was called in Italy the “galley method” because the figures were arranged to look like a galley — a kind of boat — with its sail set Schoolboys often showed the galley in the drawings they made in their notebooks, just as you made drawings in your books when you first went to school.
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