Joey Villanueva MATH 3325 Writing Assignment Fall 2017

The Division Algorithm is a basic skill of mathematics that most people use on a

daily basis: whether it be sharing a bag of candy with your friends as a child or splitting a

food check with your coworkers during lunch. Many people don’t realize how valuable it

is in our daily lives.

The Division Algorithm, at it’s basis, can be explained with the following

Theorem: Let be an integer and be a positive integer. There also exists two integers

and such that:

where

This is not how most people remember it from their grade school days, but this theorem

shows that division works. The integer divides so that there is a quotient and a

remainder . We can take any division problem and enter it into this theorem and it will

work. For Example, in the division problem , and so that:

The history of the division goes far back in human history to the time of the

Ancient Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians. There is archeological proof of

multiplication and division tables created by the Sumerians that date back to around 3000

B.C. The Egyptians created a dividing system around 2000 B.C. that is much more

difficult then what we use today. There method for division was to begin with the number
Joey Villanueva MATH 3325 Writing Assignment Fall 2017

they wanted to divide and then take the number they wanted to divide by and would

double it over and over again until they got close to .

For example:

1 4
2 8
4 16
8 32
16 64

They would then make a guess based on the data they had. So, an Ancient Egyptian might

say the answer to is around 10. It was not very exact but it did the job when it

needed to be done.
Joey Villanueva MATH 3325 Writing Assignment Fall 2017

References

eHow. History of Mathematics : Who Invented Division?, YouTube, 3 Jan. 2009,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEZoXJoqusk.

Mastin, Luke. “Sumerian/Babylonian Mathematics - The Story of Mathematics.” Story of

Mathematics, 2010, www.storyofmathematics.com/sumerian.html.

Michigian Tech University. “Section 1.5: The Division Algorithm.” Section 1.5: The

Division Algorithm, W. H. Freeman and Company, 2001,

www.math.mtu.edu/mathlab/COURSES/holt/dnt/divis5.html.