Five 'll get you ten that they do indeed look just like the ones on your keyboard, but we don't _know_ that. IIRC, the term Arabic is used, which would be a giveaway in itself, but maybe they actually are. [FYI, the numerals in Arabic are actually rather difficult for your average westerner to read]
Tararoys wrote:OrlandoNative wrote:
More insidiously is the dissemination of Arabic numerals and higher order math. At first it'll look like it supports the Writ because Langhorne said 'X does Y' and the math supports it. But sooner or later someone will take a serious look at orbital mechanics and realize the Ptolemaic universe Langhorne insisted on using doesn't hold up.
That's the big one, I think.
Merlin has commented on a number of times that one of the reasons the Writ is so effective is because it works. It holds up under what 'test conditions' exist, and when those conditions fail they fail exactly how the Writ says they fail (I recall one character thinking about sailors unable to keep the dietary laws and suffering scurvy, for example).
But Ptolemy... With enough observational data and the right mathematical tools, Ptolemy goes 'nope!' and then you have a situation where the math everywhere else supports CoGA is also telling you that something is Not Quite Right.
I always thought the arabic numerals were a big mistake on Merlin's part. The only way you could have exactly the same arabic numerals as you did on Old Earth would be for someone with a memory of old earth to tell the safeholdians. There is no way archangelic visitors with knowledge of earth's history are going to believe that Rajer Mahklyn (sp) came up with them all on his own. That's a flair-lit tip off for 'Fallen Influence Here!' And a very little investigation would show the oh-so-coincidental arrival of Sejin Merlin to Charis at exactly the same time the numerals were 'invented.' Even local safeholdians are suspicious of the coincidence- somewhere in the books there's someone wondering if all the 'fathers of innovation' are really responsible for their own inventions.
The new sale plans, the trunnions, and the gunpowder could be local inventions, but not *exactly the same numeral system Old Earth used to have.*
So I wonder if that is going to be a plot point at some point.