This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations.

Louis Charles Karpinski (5 August 1878 - 25 January 1956) was an American mathematician. He was educated at Cornell University and in Europe at Strassburg. Karpinski also studied (1909-1910) at Columbia.

This story has often been told in part, but it is a long time since any effort has been made to bring together the fragmentary narrations and to set forth the general problem of the origin and development of these numerals.