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Historical Beginnings | The Place Value System | The Branches of Mathematics | Numerical and Literal Numbers | Signs and Symbols in Mathematics | Expressing More Relationships Between Numbers Historical Beginnings The development of mathematics began in the Stone Age, when people first started to live in groups. Yes, people in the very first villages needed to know how to count and add. Soon thereafter, other mathematical skills became useful and necessary. The first written records of math go back to about 4000 B.C. Ancient documents reveal the use of mathematics by the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the Greeks. The first math subjects were in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. The Babylonians invented the system of measuring time that we use today (wherein an hour has sixty minutes and a minute has sixty seconds). The Pythagorean Theorem, well known to all algebra and geometry students today, was developed by a Greek named Pythagoras. The Pythagorean Theorem explains mathematical relationships in right triangles. Mathematics has been called a language, because mathematics uses many signs and symbols. In the very beginning, for example, hieroglyphics and other markings were used to represent:
For additional instructional material and practice
exercises on this
subject, go to: This was before the Roman Empire conquered the Western world. Using the abilities of people in all of their lands, the Romans developed a system of numbers called Roman numerals. In this system, letters were used to symbolize numbers or quantities. For example,
To get more specific numbers using Roman numerals, the Romans combined their symbols. When a larger number is followed by equal or smaller ones, they are added to the larger number. For example,
But when smaller numbers are followed by a larger number, the smaller ones are subtracted from the larger. For example,
For additional instructional material and practice
exercises on this
subject, go to: Now let's do Practice Exercise 1-1 (top) Fortunately, we don't have to use Roman numerals today; they are very difficult to use in basic math operations (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing). The Arabic numbers (e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc.) we use today were invented during the sixth century. The Hindu-Arabic system was formulated in India, developed in the Arabian countries, and later adopted by Europe and the rest of the world. Nine digits (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) were used and they had place values. This means that the value of the numbers depended on the placement of the digits, whether they were the first, second or third , etc. Then, even though fractions had been introduced by the Egyptians and Babylonians around 1500 BC, it wasn't until the ninth century that the idea of zero was developed. Negative numbers (numbers less than zero) were added in the 16th century, even though the Chinese had begun developing the concept in about 200 BC. Perhaps the most important feature of the development of mathematics is that the Hindu-Arabic-system that we use today was eventually adopted throughout the world. This meant that mathematics became a universal language, used by people in all countries. Yes, even though people speak different languages in different countries today, they all use the same mathematics system as we do. This means that new advances in mathematics in one country can be understood and applied by people all over the world. For additional instructional material and practice
exercises on this
subject, go to:
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