To explore why the development of numbers occurred there and not some other place, Jones travels to Australia and meets a tribe called the Warlpiri.
It went something like this: One was a line, ten was a rope, a hundred a coil of rope (three symbols for smaller numbers, probably applicable to the average Egyptian), a thousand a lotus (a symbol of pleasure), ten thousand was a commanding finger, and a million – a number the Sumerians would never have dreamed of – was the symbol of a prisoner begging for forgiveness.
The Egyptians had a standard unit, the cubit, which was instrumental for building wonders such as the pyramids.
Jones discusses with mathematician Marcus du Sautoy Pythagoras' obsession with numbers, his secret society, his dedication to numbers, the Pythagorean theorem, and his flawed belief that all things could be measured in units (brought down by the attempt to measure the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle, in units relative to the two legs).
One reason that Terry Jones theorizes might be was that the numerals that the Romans used were basically the old-fashioned lines of the Ishango bone.
Jones discusses finally how Gottfried Leibniz invented the binary system, which is the foundation for modern digital computers.
In 1944, a computer called Colossus was used to crack enemy codes during World War II.