A number is a mathematical object used to count,measure and lable(Thats easy).

Everyday numbers are the natural numbers.BE AWARE.A numeral and number
are not the same,a numeral is a symbol that represents a number.So numbers
were a big part of history mostly because troughout the centuries zero,negative
numbers,rational numbers and real numbers were invented and used.
Basic operations are called arithmetical
operations(Addition,subtraction,multiplication,division and exponentiation).First
time arithmetical operations were used was in the Sumerian time(I'll explain in
detail when we get to the Sumerians).
Did you know that the Belief in mystical significance of numbers is called
pseudoscience or numerology.For example,believing that 13 is an unlucky
number.Numerology actually influenced the developement of Greek
mathematics(And we'll learn that the Greeks are the ones who led math to a
golden age,fun huh?) and it influences some mathematical confusions today.
The people who invented math and used counting and numbers were the ancient
Sumerians in 4000B.C.(Trough the Akkadian empire,then later the
Babylonians).They counted using tokens,each token represented 1 of
something,for example 1 chicken=1 token.If you got rid of that 1 chicken then
that 1 token would be taken away from you.That was a big step in the world,the
step that started it all.Because with that simple token system the arithmetical
operations were invented.At the beginning they used clay cones in clay pouches
all sealed up and secured,and the number of cones was written on the
pouches.With this process,the idea of writing,was also born.But later they
realized that they didn't need clay cones or clay pouches or any of that,just a
simple board.But how did they prevent people from making their own boards and
attempt to trick people by adding 50 tokens to themselves?Well...This is the part
where a nother interesting invention was created,accountans(So much
inventions,man).A group of people was selected to keep track of the boards and
the boards ment nothing without an official seal on them.
In Egypt,around 3000B.C.,the number one was a measurement unit,its lenght
was the lenght from a mans elbow to his fingertips plus the width of his
palm(This was actually pretty precise,they built the pyramids using this
measurement).The Egyptians were the first ones to invent symbols for different
numbers too(They didn't catch on obviously,you'll see why,a little later).1 was a
line,10 was a rope and 100 was a coil of rope.They were also the first ones to
think of numbers as big as a million.Its symbol was a prisoner on his knees,hands
in the air,in a posture of humility,begging for forgiveness.
But the Greek role in math was learning and discovering new concepts and
terms,in fact Pythagora was Greek(Even though he studied in Egypt and then
returned to Greece and opened a school).He invented odd and even numbers,but
in a weird way.Odd numbers were male and even numbers were female.That
time,math reached the golden age,there,in Greece...But,the Greek part ended
with the murder of Archimedes,he was killed by a Roman soldier during the Siege
of Syracuse in 212 B.C.(Archimedes was really smart and awesome and heres

why)Archimedes took math to a completely new level and he's considered one of
the greatest mathematicians that ever lived mostly beacuse his experiments
with numbers were pretty much games to him,he enjoyed them.But as trivial as
those games may seem,they actually led to results that proved something
practical in the real world,and we can still feel the results of some even
today.One good example is:Archimedes wondered if he could turn the surface of
a sphere into a cylinder and if that was indeed possible what would be the
difference in the area covered?When he found the result,he stopped,but what he
didn't know is that the steps he used in that example later helped mapmakers
turn the globe into a flat map.He was also famous for his screw that pumped
water to a higher level and he was equally famous for inventing a method of
determining the volume of an object that didn't have a regular shape.He figured
that out while taking a bath.(When he figured it out he jumped out of the tub and
ran around the streets,naked,screaming ''Eureka!'' or ''I found it!'').Well I just
want to say that he's famous for a LOT of mathematical contributions.
The first solid evidenceof the existence of the number one appeared about 20k
years ago and is found in the Congo region in Afrika(1960).Scientists say that
lines in a bone called the Ishango Bone were too uniform to be accidental and
could be signs of something that those people were noting,some day or year
when something happened...(creepy right?)
Under the rule of Rome math entered a dark age.Why?Because the Romans
didn't care about math or numbers or anything connected with math,they cared
about world domination and power.Their only connection to math was an abacus
they used,basically for counting.They used a system of stacking lines and they
avoided bigger equations and calculations because then they couldn't solve
them.Long story short,their math wasn't good at all...No wonder there aren't any
famous roman mathematicians in todays history books...Just kidding.
Then a huge discovery and change came to the world,all the way in India,by a
mathematician named Brahmagupta,500 A.D.(Or 458 A.D. to be precise).The
Indians created a entirely new number and its said that for the first time in
history,the concept of nothing,had a number.And that number is zero.But they
symbolized it simply by adding dots below numbers.That creation gave the
Indians a few 1000 year jumpstart.And what do I mean by a ''Few 1000 year
jumpstart''?I mean they were able to explore the universe and the Indian
astronomers were centuries ahead of the christian world,Indian scientists worked
out that the Earth spins around the Sun and its axis.This fact wouldn't have been
known for another 1000 years at least.But the Indians also invented a different
simbol for every number from one to nine.Today those symbols are known as
Arabic numbers.Yeah,the INDIANS invented those so called ''Arabic'' numbers in
500B.C.
BUT the history of zero,both as a concepth and a number,stretches far deeper
into history-so deep,that its hard to nail down its true origin.Some believe that it
came 400 and 300 B.C. in Babylon as a double angled wedges symbol,and
obviously they didn't develope it as a number.Other people say that zero occured
independently in the New World,in Mayan culture,likely in the first few centuries

A.D. ''That,we suppose,is the most striking example of the zero being devised
wholly from scratch.''Says Robert Kaplan.He also says that there might be an
even earlier emergence of a placeholder zero,used by the Sumerians to denote
an empty number column some 4000 to 5000 years ago.(Yeah,the Sumerians are
the guys who invented the numbers,thanks to them we have this project right
now).600 years later the Mayans used zero as a place holder around A.D. 350
and used it in their calendar systems(never in equations).
Then fractions were invented in Baghdad or what was then Persia.First person
that suggested to use zero in calculations if no number appeared in the tens
place was Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi(Algorithms are a corruption of his
name).The teachings of Islam and the muslims adherence to the Kur'an are what
led to the invention of fractions.So how did Arabic numbers and zero come all the
way from India to Persia?Well it is believed that an Indian leader,came to the
Persian Kalipha and presented to him the greatest gift he could think of and the
greatest knowledge of that time,the Arabic numbers.Muslim mathematicians
used those numbers wisely and created new ways and methods to do math.They
created quadratic equations and algebra(Algebra was invented in the ninth
century).These discoveries opened a new door to math,astronomy and science in
the middle east.
By 1200A.D. Arabic numbers were known in North Africa and Europe.But how in
Europe?Well the son of an Italian merchant,curious Leonardo Pisano Bigollo aka
Fibonacci, was introduced to Arabic numbers in Algeria while traveling with his
father.What made him so interested was the ways of counting and calculating
with those numbers,so he brought them back to Italy with him.The Italian
goverment was suspicious of Arabic numbers and outlawed the use of zero,thats
why there was a code named ''Chiper'' which means both a secret code and
zero(Cipha).in 1202A.D. he published a book called ''liber abaci'' that tought and
introduced Europe to Arabic numbers.The other way was the Moorish conquest of
Spain.In Europe,it took a while for those numbers to catch on because the Roman
numeral system was deeply engraved into Europe.The greed in Europe was the
reason why the numbers cought on,so that merchants could calculate their
interests on goods and properties quicker and easier.So,finally,in the 1600s,zero
was used troughout Europe.It was fundamental in Rene Descartes' Cartesian
coordinate system and in sir Isaac Newtons and Gottfried Wilhem Liebnizs
developments of calculus.
The Catholic church did not allow its followers to show interests in loans,only
because it said that loans were a sin,but later after the Catholic reformation
charging interests was allowed,the merchant class quickly adopted the new
Arabic system because interests could be calculated up to 12 digits.
The next big invention came in Germany,1679,by a German
mathematician,Gottfried Liebnitz,who invented a system of counting that only
used ones and zeros,the binary system.In that system,one stands for something
but zero stands for nothing...

The same mathematician designed a machine that was able to count in

binary,and binary only,the new digital age has arrived.But there was a issue that
would be solved only in a nother 265 years.The machine he designed wasn't
built.
The machine was built exactly 265 years later(You can do the math and check).In
1944,during WWII,the machine was built in England and was called
Collosus,mostly to crack the nazi codes that they were sending to each other,and
it worked thanks to the millions of rapid calculations that the Collosus was able to
perform,the Ally code-breakers knew what the Germans were saying even before
Hitler.They say that the Collosus shortened the war by as much as 2 years...
Negative numbers were recognized at around 100B.C.-50B.C. in China.Ther, red
dots were used to denote positive coefficients and black dots were used for
negative ones.Then in India,during the 600s,negative numbers were used to
represent debts.However,in the 12th century in India,Bhaskara gives negative
roots for quadratic equations but says the negative value ''Is in this case not to
be taken,for it is inadequate;people do not approve of negative roots.''
The first time negative numbers were used in Europe was in the 3rd century
A.D.,in greece(Yay,Greece!).Then Nicolas Chuquet during the 15th century used
them as exponents,but referred to them as ''Absurd numbers''(weird,i know).Until
the 18th century people would ignore any negative results returned by equations
because they thought that the results were meaningless.
It is likely that the concept of fractional numbers dates to times before actual
history.Egyptians used their fraction notation for rational numbers in
mathematical texts such as Rhimd mathematical Papyrus and the Kahun
Papyrus(math scrolls).
Classical Greek and Indian mathematicians made studies of the theory of rational
numbers.The best known of these is Euclid's elements,dating somewhere around
300B.C.The most famous and relevant Indian text is the Sthananga Sutra.
The first time irrational numbers were used was in the Indian Sulba
Sutras,somewhere around 800 and 500 B.C.The first existence of irrational
numbers is linked to Pythagoras(Everyone has heard of him,the triangle theory
about the hypothenuse,remember?I mentioned him earlier)More precisely to the
Pythagorean Hippasus of Metapontum,who invented a (Geometrical) proof of the
irrationality of the square root of 2.It is said that Hippasus discovered irrational
numbers when representing the square root of 2 as a fraction.Pythagoras
believed in the absoluteness of numbers and didn't accept irrational numbers,he
couldn't disprove them trough logic,but neither could he accept them,so he
sentenced Hippasus to death by drowning.Then in the 16th century Europe
accepted negative and fractional numbers.Then by the 17th century most
mathematicians used decimal fractions with modern notation.
Prime numbers have been studied throughout recorded history.But the detailed
theory dates to the Renaissance and later eras.In 1796 Adrien-Marie Legendre
conjucted the prime number theorem,describing the asymptotic distribution of

primes.That theorem was proved by Jacques Hadamard and Chares De La ValleePoussin in 1896.And the Goldbach conjecture claims that any sufficiently large
even number is the sum of 2 primes.Another conjecture related to the
distribution of prime numbers is the Riemann hypothesis,by Bernhard Riemann in
1859.Those conectures remain unproven and unrefuted.