Why does the west use Arabic Numerals?

So, we all know the Western world mainly uses Arabic numerals for math, right? But that wasn’t always the case.

For ages, it was all about Roman numerals. So why the switch? What got Europe hooked on Arabic numerals?

During the Roman Empire and for centuries after, Roman numerals ruled.

Just a side note: Eastern Europe actually used the Cyrillic numeral system from the Bulgarian Empire until Peter the Great’s reforms in the 1700s.

Anyway, Roman numerals might seem clunky for math, but back then, everyone in Europe was used to them. For folks then, it was totally obvious that “X plus X equals XX”—you know, just the way things were for a long time. So, why change?

Arabic numerals—named that way because they came through trade with the Arabic world (though they actually originated in India)—started showing up in Europe in the 9th century. Pope Sylvester II was