Why is the number of greatest magnitude on the left?
pg: Left to right numbers are actually more natural in European languages than in Arabic, which is written right to left. It's very inconvenient writing numbers in Arabic, because if you write things in the order you say them (which most people do) you have to write them in the opposite direction to the way you write the words.Left to right numbers are so inconvenient in Arabic that I expect it's something they copied from Hindu numbers, which were the original source.