EARLY NUMBER

SYSTEMS AND SYMBOLS

 PRIMATIVE COUNTING

• is the first method of counting

has been argued to be
counting on fingers. This
evolved into sign language for
the hand-to-eye-to-elbow
communication of numbers
which, while not writing, gave
way to written numbers.
• Tallies made by carving notches
in wood, bone, and stone were
used for at least forty thousand
years. These tally marks may
have been used for counting
elapsed time, such as numbers
of days, lunar cycles or keeping
records of quantities, such as of
animals.
 Who invented counting?
• They are known today as Arabic
numerals, but they would more
properly be called Indian numbers,
since it was the Indians who
invented them. The Indians have
been using “Arabic” numbers them
since about 500 BC. Once zero was
invented it transformed counting,
and mathematics, in a way that
would change the world.
When was the first number system
created?
• The Babylonians got their number
system from the Sumerians,
the first people in the world to
develop a
counting system. Developed 4,000
to 5,000 years ago, the
Sumerian system was positional —
the value of a symbol depended on its
position relative to other symbols.
 What is the oldest number
system?
• Babylonian Number System.
Approximately 5,000 years ago, one
of the first written number systems
arose in Babylon, which used a base
of 60. Number systems with a base of
60 are called sexagesimal. For
numbers less than 60, the
Babylonians used a base-10 system.
 Who invented numbers 0 9?

• We all know 0 was invented by

Aryabhatt. And as far as
the invention of digits 1-9 is
concerned, these are believed to
be invented in Arab.
These digits are also known as
Arabic Numerals. The first positional
numerical system was developed in
Babylon in the 2nd millennium BC.
Who first used numbers?
• Numbers should be distinguished from
numerals, the symbols used to
represent numbers. The Egyptians
invented the first ciphered numeral
system, and the Greeks followed by
mapping their counting numbers
onto Ionian and Doric alphabets.
When should a child count to 10?

• When your child is 2 years old, she

may learn to count up to 10 by rote,
though she won't really understand
the concept of counting objects yet,
and may skip around in her counting
— "One, two, five, six..."
 How did we start counting
years?
• A.D. 1873." The idea of counting
years has been around for as
long as we have written records,
but the idea of syncing up where
everyone starts counting is
relatively new. Today the
international standard is to
designate years based on a
traditional reckoning of
the year Jesus was born — the
“A.D.” and "B.C." system.
Kinds of symbols
 Gesture Symbols

There is little doubt that primitive

counting was done on the 铿乶gers,
that the earliest numeral symbols
were groups of the 铿乶gers formed
by associating a single 铿乶ger with
each individual thing in the group of
things whose number it was desired
to represent.
 Spoken Symbols
Numeral words—spoken symbols—would
naturally arise much later than gesture symbols.
Wherever the origin of such a word can be
traced, it is found to be either descriptive of the
corresponding finger symbol or—when there is
nothing characteristic enough about the finger
symbol to suggest a word, as is particularly the
case with the smaller numbers—the name of
some familiar group of things. Thus in the
languages of numerous tribes the numeral 5 is
simply the word for hand, 10 for both hands, 20
for “an entire man” (hands and feet); while 2 is
the word for the eyes, the ears, or wings.
 Written Symbols
• The earliest written symbols for
number would naturally be mere
groups of strokes—-|, ||, |||, etc. Such
symbols have a double advantage
over gesture symbols: they can be
made permanent, and are capable of
indefinite extension—there being, of
course, no limit to the numbers of
strokes which may be drawn.
 Number Sense
• Number Sense can refer to " an intuitive
understanding of numbers, their
magnitude relationship and how they are
affected by operations .
• ability to work outside of traditionally
taught algorithms.
• a well organized conceptual framework
of number information that enables a
person to understand numbers and
numbers relationship and to solve
mathematical problems that are not
bound by traditional algorithms.
• Number sense is an emerging
construct that prefers to a child
fluidity and flexibility with numbers
and what numbers mean as well
as an ability to perform mental
mathematics and to look at the
world and make comparisons.
• Number sense is important
because it encourages student to
think flexibly and promotes
confidence with numbers
 TALLY MARKS
• also called HASH MARKS, are a
unary numeral system. They are a
form of numeral used for counting.
They are most useful in counting or
tallying ongoing results, such as the
score in a game or sport, as no
intermediate results need to be
erased or discarded.
•
 TALLY MARKS
• However, because of the length of large
numbers, tallies are not commonly used
for static text. Notched sticks, known as
tally sticks, were also historically used for
this purpose.
 EARLY HISTORY
• Counting aids other than body parts
appear in the Upper Paleolithic. The
oldest tally sticks date to between
35,000 and 25,000 years ago, in the
form of notched bones found in the
context of the European Aurignacian
to Gravettian and in Africa's Late
Stone Age.
EARLY HISTORY

• The so-called Wolf bone is a

prehistoric artifact discovered in 1937
in Czechoslovakia during excavations
at Vestonice, Moravia, led by Karl
Absolon. Dated to the Aurignacian,
approximately 30,000 years ago, the
bone is marked with 55 marks which
may be tally marks. The head of an
ivory Venus figurine was excavated
close to the bone.
EARLY HISTORY

• The Ishango bone, found in the

Ishango region of the present-day
Democratic Republic of Congo, is
dated to over 20,000 years old. Upon
discovery, it was thought to portray a
series of prime numbers. In the book
How Mathematics Happened:
EARLY HISTORY
• The First 50,000 Years, Peter Rudman argues
that the development of the concept of prime
numbers could only have come about after the
concept of division, which he dates to after
10,000 BC, with prime numbers probably not
being understood until about 500 BC. He also
writes that "no attempt has been made to
explain why a tally of something should exhibit
multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and
20, and some numbers that are almost multiples
of 10. Alexander Marshack examined the
Ishango bone microscopically, and concluded
that it may represent a six-month lunar
Writing systems

• Roman numerals, the Chinese

numerals for one through three (
一 二 三), and rod numerals were
derived from tally marks, as
possibly was the ogham script.
THE PERUVIAN QUIPUS:
KNOTS AS NUMBERS
• Quipu (also spelled khipu), or talking
knots, are recording devices fashioned
from strings historically used by a
number of cultures in the region of
Andean South America. Knotted strings
were used by many other cultures such
as the ancient Chinese and native
Hawaiians, but such practices should
not be confused with the quipu, which
refers only to the Andean device.
• A quipu usually consisted of cotton or
camelid fiber strings. The Inca people
used them for collecting data and
keeping records, monitoring tax
obligations, properly collecting census
records, calendrical information, and
for military organization. The cords
stored numeric and other values
encoded as knots, often in a base ten
• A quipu could have only a few or
thousands of cords. The configuration
of the quipus has been "compared to
string mops."Archaeological evidence
has also shown the use of finely
carved wood as a supplemental, and
perhaps more sturdy, base to which
the color-coded cords would be
attached. A relatively small number
have survived.
• Objects that can be identified
unambiguously as quipus first appear in
the archaeological record in the first
millennium AD. They subsequently
played a key part in the administration
of the Kingdom of Cusco and later
Tawantinsuyu, the empire controlled by
the Inca ethnic group, flourishing across
the Andes from c. 1100 to 1532 AD. As
the region was subsumed under the
invading Spanish Empire, the use of the
• However, in several villages, quipu
continued to be important items for the
local community, albeit for ritual rather
than practical use. It is unclear as to where
and how many intact quipus still exist, as
many have been stored away in
mausoleums.
• Quipu is the Spanish spelling and the most
common spelling in English. Khipu
(pronounced [ˈkʰɪpʊ], plural: khipukuna) is
the word for "knot" in Cusco Quechua. In
most Quechua varieties, the term is kipu.