Page 6 - Matematica_Mathematics - Numere naturale_Natural numbers

Mathematics

1. Natural numbers

Mathematics began with numbers and they have kept an important place in our lives till today. The
modern civilization is impossible to imagine without numbers. We encounter and use them everyday tens,
hundreds, even thousands of times through computers.
Their history begins from the most distant times, much more distant than we could
imagine. Counting, useful from the very beginning of life on earth, gave great trouble to our
distant ancestors.
At first, for counting they used pebbles (“pietricele”) - one for each item. The solution
was great if applied to the small numbers. But imagine how many pebbles it would take to
represent the year we are in now.

4,000 years ago, Babylonians (“babilonienii”) based their count
on dozens down to number 60. One result of this is that we currently
have a time system with 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an
hour.

Clay tablet with Mathematic Exercises,
Mesopotamia

Egyptians (“Egiptenii„) used a series of simple lines for the numbers up to nine and then a special
symbol for ten.
Babylonians had a similar system, when the Romans (“romanii”) introduced a new system when the
count reached five. Others had a separate system for each number up to nine, as in the system Arabic which
we use today. The Greeks (“Grecii”) also had a special symbol for ten.

Egyptian numbers Roman numbers