Ancient Mathematicshistory
Ancient Mathematicshistory
Ancient Mathematicshistory
EGYPTIAN, BABYLONIAN,
GREEKS
Prepared By:
Llegue, Fidelyn Nicole E.
Submitted to:
Ms. Jean Aristonet Leyson
Ancient knowledge of the sciences was often wrong
and wholly unsatisfactory by modern standards.
However, not all of the knowledge of the more learned
peoples of the past was false.
In fact, without people like Euclid or Plato, we may not
have been as advanced in this age as we are.
Mathematics is an adventure in ideas. Within the
history of mathematics, one finds the ideas and lives of
some of the most brilliant people in the history of
mankind’s populace upon Earth.
Since those first sounds were created, man has only
added five new basic number-sounds to the ten
primary ones. They are “hundred,” “thousand,”
“million,” “billion” (a thousand million in America, a
million millions in England), “trillion” (a million
millions in America, a million-million millions in
England).
Primitive man invented the same number of number-
sounds as he had fingers, our number system is a
decimal one, or a scale based on ten, consisting of
limitless repetitions of the first ten number sounds.
First, man created a number system of base 10.
Certainly, it is not just a coincidence that man just so
happens to have ten fingers or ten toes, for when our
primitive ancestors first discovered the need to count
they definitely would have used their fingers to help
them along just like a child today.
As an object of higher thinking, man invented ten
number-sounds. When the need to count over ten
aroused, he simply combined the number-sounds related
with his fingers.
So, if he wished to define one more than ten, he simply
said one-ten. Thus our word eleven is simply a modern
form of the Teutonic “ein-lifon” (”one over”).
The earliest continuous record of mathematical
activity is from the second millennium BC When one
of the few wonders of the world were created
mathematics was necessary.
Even the earliest Egyptian pyramid proved that the
makers had a fundamental knowledge of geometry and
surveying skills. The approximate time period was
2900 BC.
EGYPTIANS MATHEMATICS
The best known sources of ancient Egyptian
mathematics in the written format are the Rhind
Papyrus and the Moscow Papyrus.
The sources provide undeniable proof that the later
Egyptians had intermediate knowledge of the
following mathematical problems: applications to
surveying, salary distribution, calculation of area of
simple geometric figures’ surfaces and volumes, simple
solutions for first and second degree equations.
Egyptians used a base ten number system most likely
because of biological reasons (ten fingers as explained
above). They used the Natural Numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6,
etc.) also known as the counting numbers. The word
digit, which is Latin for finger, is also another name for
numbers which explains the influence of fingers upon
numbers once again,
The Egyptians produced a more complex system than the
tally system for recording amounts.
Hieroglyphs stood for groups of tens, hundreds, and
thousands. The higher powers of ten made it much easier
for the Egyptians to calculate into numbers as large as one
million. Our number system which is both decimal and
positional (52 is not the same value as 25) differed from the
Egyptian which was additive, but not positional.
The Egyptians also knew more of pi than its mere
existence. They found pi to equal C/D or 4(8/9)ª whereas a
equals 2. The method for ancient peoples arriving at this
numerical equation was fairly easy. They simply counted
how many times a string that fit the circumference of the
circle fitted into the diameter, thus the rough
approximation of 3.
The biblical value of pi can be found in the Old Testament (I
Kings vii.23 and 2 Chronicles iv.2)in the following verse: