Early Math
Early Math
Early Math
Mathemat
ics
Cheenee Rivera
Jbey Velasquez
What is Mathematics?
• Mathematics is the study of numbers,
shapes and patterns
• the abstract science that deals with the
logic of shape, quantity and arrangement
• comes from the Greek word máthema,
meaning "science, knowledge, or learning",
and is sometimes shortened to maths
Story of Math
• history of mathematics is nearly as old as
humanity itself
• has evolved from simple counting,
measurement calculation, systematic study
of shapes, motions of physical objects,
through the application of abstraction,
imagination and logic, to the broad,
complex and often abstract discipline we
know today
Pre-Historic Math
• Our prehistoric ancestors would have had
a general sensibility about amounts, and
would have instinctively known the
difference between one and two antelopes.
But the intellectual leap from the concrete
idea of two things to the invention of a
symbol or word for the abstract idea of
"two" took many ages to come about.
• Even today, there are isolated
hunter-gatherer tribes in Amazonia
which only have words for "one",
"two" and "many", and others which
only have words for numbers up to
five. In the absence of settled
agriculture and trade, there is little
need for a formal system of numbers.
What is Early
Mathematics?
• known as the history of mathematics
• a study of the standard mathematical
methods and notation of the past.
• Greek and Hellenistic mathematics
is generally considered to be one of the
most important for greatly expanding
both the method and the subject matter
of mathematics.
Greek and Hellenistic
mathematics
(c. 550 BC—AD 300)
• Greek mathematics refers to mathematics
written in Greek between about 600 BCE
and 450 CE.
• Greek mathematics is thought to have begun
with Thales (c. 624—c.546 BC) and
Pythagoras (c. 582—c. 507 BC).
• The Pythagoreans discovered the existence
of irrational numbers.
• Euclid (c. 300 BC) is the earliest example of
the format still used in mathematics today,
such as definition, axiom, theorem, proof.