Humans started counting tens of thousands of years, but when did they start discovering advanced arithmetic, algebra and even the calculation?
Mathematics is the basis of all sciences and has made a long way since human beings began to count.
But after all, when did people really start doing math?
This is what seeking to answer, in an article published this Sunday.
The origins of counting
Humans could not have dominated complex and abstract mathematics without first discovering how countand evidence suggests that our species already counted for tens of thousands of years.
O applausefrom the region of Congoin Africa, indicates that the Homo sapiens It had been “accounts” for at least 20,000 years.
The 10 centimeters bone, probably from a baboin or a lynx, was found in the 1950s. Researchers believe that the dozens of Parallel carvings on its surface were a “marking”.
In 1970, the archaeologist Alexander Marshack argued that it was a six -month lunar calendar.
There is also the lebombo bonewhich was unearthed in southern Africa in the 1970s and was done about 43,000 years. It is also covered with carvings and may have been a count of 29 days of a lunar month or the human menstrual cycle.
Sumerian advances
The next big step in mathematics came with old Sumerianwhich are credited (perhaps coincidentally) for the invention of the oldest type of writing in the world.
Sumerians were one of the first mesopotamian civilizations, and their city-states prospered in what is today southern Iraqbetween 4500 and 1900 BC.
Among the main contributions – writes Live Science – are the digits that could be written in clay tables with cuneiform marks in the form of wedge and the Sexagesimal numérico systemwhich is the traditional base system 60 still used today in trigonometry, navigation and time measurement.
Mathematics, unlike simply counting, is the study of patterns and relationships using logical reasoning and abstract concepts. The ancient Sumerians developed the concepts of arithmetic – including tables for multiplication and division – and algebra, in which unknown amounts were represented by symbols.
Sumerians also developed formulas for calculating the areas of triangles, rectangles and irregular forms, with which they mediated land and projected irrigation systems.
The mathematician Duncan Melville explained to live science that these developments were driven by the growing bureaucracy Sumer“The registrars needed to know not only what came in or out of their stores, but also how much or how many.”
Modern Mathematics
In addition to the developments of the Sumerians and their Mesopotamian successors, especially the Babylons, according to the explanation of Live Science, the first mathematical knowledge and innovations came from old Egypt, Greece, India and China and, later, of Islamic civilization.
Then the Mathematics reforested in the beginning of modern Europewhere two scientists said they invented the calculation – “A way to determine the geometric area delimited by any curve and an important advance in mathematics that sustains much of modern engineering and science.”
One of them was Isaac Newtonwho said he invented the calculation in his work of 1687, “Principia Mathematica”.
Another was the German polymate Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizwhich had published a mathematical system of differentials and wholemeals a few years earlier.
Newton and Leibniz were involved in a fierce dispute over who deserved recognition for the invention. But historians believe that the calculation was developed independently of each other.
