The economic organization in Mangareva and other Polynesian cultures made counting very important. Their counting system was a hybrid of decimal and binary.

Computers only understand two things: on (1) or off (0). So, how do we get them to do everything else? Welcome to the world of binary.

However, for those important tribute goods — turtles, fish, coconuts, octopuses, and breadfruit — the Mangarevans developed a special counting system, based partially on binary.

New Delhi, Dec. 16: A group of remote Pacific islanders may have discovered binary mathematics, a key element of modern computing machines, hundreds of years before German mathematician-philosopher ...