[ih] Fwd: History of "accounts"

[John Day]

For the origins of double-entry bookkeeping in the 16thC, I would 
recommend, The Measure of Reality by Alfred Crosby.  It does appear 
that the Europe was unique in developing this level of 
quantification.  While other civilizations develop mathematical 
recipes and actually get pretty sophisticated (linear algebra, 
Pascal's triangle in China), the concept of proof appears to be 
unique to the West.

John



At 7:30 AM -0500 2/8/14, Miles Fidelman wrote:
>Probably goes back at least as far as the Egyptians - who invented 
>lots of things (e.g., surveying) to "account" (root is the same as 
>"count") to keep track of fields and grain stores across annual 
>floodings of the Nile.  And then there's the whole history of trade 
>and credit in its various forms, hence the term "on account."
>
>I expect that if one goes back far enough, one will find that this 
>is a case of parallel invention across multiple cultures, during 
>pre-historical periods.
>
>Joly MacFie wrote:
>>Anyone here want to give Michele further pointers?
>>
>>j
>>
>>
>>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>From: *Fred Fuchs* <fred at firesabre.com <mailto:fred at firesabre.com>>
>>Date: Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 10:06 PM
>>Subject: Re: [Air-L] History of "accounts"
>>To: Michelle Forelle <mcforelle at gmail.com 
>><mailto:mcforelle at gmail.com>>, AoIR-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org 
>><mailto:air-l at listserv.aoir.org>>
>>
>>
>>On 2/7/2014 7:51 PM, Michelle Forelle wrote:
>>
>>     Hi all,
>>
>>     I'm working on a project which requires me to look into the
>>     history of the
>>     concept of "accounts," as in bank accounts or social media accounts.
>>
>>
>>"Accounts" in computing began in the days of batch processing and 
>>timesharing. Here are some related links:
>>
>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing
>>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/timesharing/timesharing.html
>>http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Time-sharing.html 
>><http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eachaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Time-sharing.html>
>>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=880740
>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q07PhW5sCEk
>>http://www.bobbemer.com/TIMESHAR.HTM
>>
>>Here's a bit more on banking too:
>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking
>>http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/banking/swiss-bank-account2.htm
>>http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0801059.html
>>
>>Good luck,
>>
>>Fred
>>
>>--
>>Fred Fuchs - Founder, CEO, & Producer
>>FireSabre Consulting LLC
>>Content Services for Virtual Worlds
>>Creation, Events, Training, & Simulations
>>www.linkedin.com/in/fredfuchs <http://www.linkedin.com/in/fredfuchs>
>>https://twitter.com/Fred_Fuchs
>>
>>
>>
>>
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