While mathematics is the language of science, numbers are the language of mathematics. The earliest use of numbers — or the first intimation for the invention of numbers — takes place around 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (the Near East, or Middle East, as it was commonly referred). Some of the world’s first farmers, herdsman, merchants used tokens, stones, or small objects to indicate the quantity of something — grain, livestock, cloth.
This shift became necessary with the advent of agriculture, because grain and other food had to be stored and recorded to ensure there would be enough food for everyone to survive. As trade increased, numerical communication only increased in importance. Not least to prevent thievery.
The Ancient Egyptians were the first to invent fractions between 2000–1000 BC. Initially the Egyptians used them to show reciprocals, but eventually they used them to represent equal divisions of a whole quantity. Amazingly, the concept of the number zero as a ‘base state’ or a ‘null condition’ was not invented until the fifth century CE. [1] This revolution is the work of the mathematical savants of India right at the beginning of the Medieval Period (of World History) who were the first to use zero as a number in calculations, including it in their numerical system.
Negative numbers to represent a deficit or a loss were the last to be expressed numerically. It was again the mathematicians of India who were responsible. They were the first to use the negative numbers in their equations during the seventh century CE, as well as to express quantities like financial debt.
Our modern number system evolved over these thousands of years to the flexibility we see today.
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