Who invented the concept of 'maths'?

Question

An interesting thought of how different life would be if it werent for numbers!!

Answer 1

NO ONE INVENTED IT ,IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE SO I THINK IT WAS RATHER DISCOVERED BY MANY PEOPLE EVER SINCE THE ANCIENT TIMES

Answer 2

Are you asking a etymology question or a philosophy question? I will assume the latter and try to answer.

"Maths" or math wasn't invented by anyone I guess. I read in Roger Penrose' book that similar to the tangible world of mountains, lakes, forests etc, there is this world of ideas. It is already there. We merely discover it. The profoundest theories in mathematics would have been there and would have been true regardless of whether there were humans to marvel at them or not. These are truths about the universe, you could say, the mind of god. And a few of us are venturesome enough to go exploring and stumble upon these truths.

So mathematics itself is a body of truths, that we merely discover. However this land of ideas is pretty difficult terrain and we need tools to find our way about that unknown dark territory. These "tools" are the mathematical symbols we use. The numbers, the addition, subtraction and other operations, the calculi, the trigonometric ratios, the logarithms, the algebra, the geometry, the imaginary numbers... all of these are symbols. And these symbols are our tools, or hiking boots if you will, that we use as we roam the world of truths. Who invented these symbols. A bunch of people. Indians invented the zero and the concept of decimal point. They also invented the modern number system that the Arabs learnt from them and then taught to the rest of the world (which is why they are called Arabic numerals, they are actually Indian numerals); the true contribution of the Arabs was algebra, first thought of by a guy called Al Khowarismi. He wrote a book was called "al jabr.. something" from where the name algebra came; the Greeks played a part in developing Euclidean geometry; Descartes (French) developed co-ordinate geometry. Newton and Leibniz developed calculus... and so on.

Answer 3

May be Maths concept or Counting is there in early humans to count the passage of time. As per historical evidence it seems the Egiptians used the concept of counting. Later found historical evidences show that Indus valley civilisation was having very advanced concepts of maths and its application in town planning etc. But what ever number system now in use - thogh it is called Arabic system, it is originally from India. Arabs due to their proximity & business relation/dependence on India have learned from india and improved upon it. Almost all the scientific knowledge of Arabic civilisations ultimately points towards its origination from India.

Answer 4

There was a discussion about the use of the word "maths" in a seminar I took recently in college.

If I remember the dicussion correctly, the word "maths" came from the thought that there are many branches of mathematics. Think about art. Many people refer to dancing, painting, sculpting, ect., collectively as "the arts." Same with math. Math includes geometry, algebra, calculus, number theory, and many other topics. This one subject involves many topics. So, some cultures refer to these topics collectively as "maths."

Answer 5

Max Plank invented Plank's constant.

Answer 6

The earliest records of counting do not come from words but from physical evidence -- scratches on sticks or stones. Old stone age peoples had devised a system of tallyign by groups as early as 30,000 B.C. There is an example of the shinbone from a young wolf found in Czechoslovakia in 1937. It is about 7 inches long, and is engraved with 55 deeply cut notches, of about equal length, arranged in groups of 5.

Source: http://www.math.tamu.edu/~don.allen/history/origins/origins.html

Answer 7

I think it is just a result of how our mind works. We are "wired" to try to extract abstractions. Is math a natural outcome of this, like language?

Many mathematicians get angry when I say this. They believe that numbers have some form of real existence.

I like to think of what would happen if we met an ET, who evolved independently of us? Would their math look anything like ours? The problem with my theory is that humans might refuse to recognize it as math (SIGH)?

I've seen a book about the history of Chinese math. Someday I'll read it, but I fear that is the closest I will get to testing my theory. And we have the same hardware, so it's not really a test. (FORLORN SIGH)

Answer 8

No one invented it. As a concept, it has always existed. As to when human beings first recognized and accepted the concept, probably as early as the caveman days.

Answer 9

Arab culture has had the greatest impact on modern mathmatics in fact the numerical system that is used worldwide is called the Arabic numerals as opposed to roman numerals.

Imagine how hard math would be if we were using roman numerals

Answer 10

Early man invented by counting fingures.But the present numerals ie,1,2,3 etc was contributed by Arabics and Zero by Indians.The father of modern mathematics is supposed to be Descartes,but I do not know his nationality.(there is some difference of opinion in name)

Answer 11

a lot of people. The numerals used today are of arabic origin. Other civilizations who made advances are the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indians (from Asia!!!!) and others I may be missing.