Published: 16 September, 2004

Math wasn't invented in a day

Who invented math?

Math was not invented in one day or by some particular person. First people did observations and learned how to cope with everyday problems that might be called "mathematical" like counting (for keeping track of their domestic animals or doing trade), and learning to make different shapes (basket weaving, building shelters, and pottery). Very ancient animal bones with have been found in Africa and Europe containing notches made by human beings, who did some kind of keeping track of counts. These bones are believed to be between 8500 and 11,000 years old. Very old circular structures, which seem to be of astronomical significance, are found all over the world. Perhaps you have heard about Stonehenge in England, for example. This is where first knowledge in arithmetic and geometry comes from.

We do not know when, how, or why operations like addition or multiplication were invented, but they appeared several thousand years ago, apparently independently, in China, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The oldest clay tablets with mathematics on it were found in Mesopotamia (nowadays Iraq) dating about 4000 years ago. The oldest written texts in mathematics - papyruses - come from Egypt, where civilization was already about 2000 years old when those papyruses were written. In ancient Sulba Sutras that come from India and are about 3500 years old one can find rules for building altars.

Among other things there is a famous theorem of Pythagoras about the sides of a right triangle. It is believed that Pythagoras was the first to prove this theorem - which means to answer the question of why this theorem is correct. That is why this fact is known as the Pythagoras theorem. This was happening in ancient Greece about 2500 years ago. From this time on there is a tradition in mathematics to always answer the question of why your result is true.