Anyone tried to translate the example given in the TFA manuscript excerpt image?
There are way too many dots in the text.
There are way too many dots in the text.
At one point he squares the distance 92 pedes, 9 untia, 0 minuta, 9 secunda. He writes this quantity as “.92909.”, and its square as “.8.6.3.2.0.8.2.2.8.1″
Well, roughly this is equivalent to
92909**2 = 8632082281
Assuming 'pedes' is steps, 'untia', 'minuta', and 'secunda' are some dec divisions of a step, then the result notation has too many points to keep the meaning.
Looks like more of a reading/spacing convenience for a whole number with many digits. Not much about decimal point.