Importance Of The Numbers

THE IMPORTANCE OF NUMBERS

In mathematics, the numbers are those used for counting ("there are six coins on the table") and ordering ("this is the third largest city in the country"). These purposes are related to the linguistic notions of cardinal and ordinal numbers, respectively. A later notion is that of a nominal number, which is used only for naming.

Properties of the natural numbers related to divisibility, such as the distribution of prime numbers, are studied in number theory. Problems concerning counting and ordering, such as partition enumeration, are studied in ccombinatory.

The most primitive method of representing a natural number is to put down a dot for each object. Later, a set of objects could be tested for equality, excess or shortage, by striking out a dot for each object in the set.

The first major advance in abstraction was the use of numerals to represent numbers. This allowed systems to be developed for recording large numbers. The ancient Egyptiansdeveloped a powerful system of numerals with distinct hieroglyphs for 1, 10, and all the powers of 10 up to over 1 million. A stone carving from Karnak, dating from around 1500 BC and now at the Louvre in Paris, depicts 276 as 2 hundreds, 7 tens, and 6 ones; and similarly for the number 4,622. The Babylonians had a place-value system based essentially on the numerals for 1 and 10.

A much later advance was the development of the idea that 0 can be considered as a number, with its own numeral. The use of a 0 digit in place-value notation (within other numbers) dates back as early as 700 BC by the Babylonians, but they omitted such a digit when it would have been the last symbol in the number.[1] The Olmec and Maya civilizations used 0 as a separate number as early as the 1st century BC, but this usage did not spread beyond Mesoamerica.[ The use of a numeral 0 in modern times originated with the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta in 628. However, 0 had been used as a number in the medieval computus (the calculation of the date of Easter), beginning with Dionysius Exiguus in 525, without being denoted by a numeral (standard Roman numerals do not have a symbol for 0); instead nulla (or the genitive form nullae) from nullus, the Latin word for "none", was employed to denote a 0 value.

The first systematic study of numbers as abstractions (that is, as abstract entities) is usually credited to the Greek philosophers Pythagoras and Archimedes. Many Greek mathematicians did not consider 1 to be "a number", so to them 2 was the smallest number.

Independent studies also occurred at around the same time in India, China, and Mesoamerica.

Several set-theoretical definitions of natural numbers were developed in the 19th century. With these definitions it was convenient to include 0 (corresponding to the empty set) as a natural number. Including 0 is now the common convention

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