Numbers
Numbers
•What are numbers?
WHY WERE NUMBERS DEVELOPED??
Numbers
• Most ancient number marks occur in first human civilizations
• Early counting was seen on bones 35000BC
• Early Africa pebbles and shells were used to count
• Others used body parts to count…problems??
Problems• A collection of shells, pebbles or bones
can only show a quantity over a short period of time
• As civilizations became more complex, so did numbers
Developed number systems
Number Systems• 3300-3250 BC used clay tokens to
represent different objects
First written numbers
More problems
• Early number systems only allowed for simple mathematics to develop
• Early systems repeated symbols making it difficult to understand what value was counted
Ancient number systems did not use or understand zero
• Egyptian symbols for 276
4622
Roman Numerals
MMCLXVI
I=1
V=5
X=10
L=50
C=100
D=500
M=1000
How would you like to do multiplication questions using this system???
Ancient Chinese Numbers
5080
8873
4359
Our Numbers…where are they from??
Hindu – Arabic Numerals
Place Value & Zero
• 400 – 900 AD the idea of zero was established
• Place value for the first time became important
• From here, our modern day numbers developed
Place Value…how does it help??
222,222
How is this different from ancient number
systems???