WHAT MATHEMATICS

IS ABOUT

BY: GROUP 3 MEMBERS

matics, an all pervading influence, the raw materials out of wh
DEVELOPMENT OF NUMBER CONCEPT
COUNTING
NUMBERS
The simplest are the
numbers we use for counting.
Counting began long before
there were symbols like 1, 2,
3, because it is possible to
count without using numbers
at all. The use of symbols for
numbers developed 5,000
years ago.
Ancients ways to count:
1. Folding down fingers
2. Record the count as
scratches on pieces of
wood or bone
3. Tokens to use as counters
FRACTIONS
This is the kind of number
we now symbolize as 2/3(two-
thirds) or 22/7 (twenty-two
sevenths)
CONCEPT OF
ZERO
Between 400 and 1200 AD,
Zero was invented and
accepted as a number. It
represented the concrete idea
“nothing”.
Carl Friedrich Gauss,
thought by many to be the
greatest mathematician, once
said “non notationes, sed
notiones”. It means that what
matters in mathematics is
“not notations, but notions”
CONTINUATION
NEGATIVE
NUMBERS
A negative number can be thought of as
representing a debt. It may represent more
than one aspect of nature.
Example:
1. Negative temperature( in degree
Celsius) is one colder than freezing
2. Object with negative velocity is moving
backward
However, mathematics is NOT just about numbers.
5 NUMBER
SYSTEM
There are five number system.
1. Natural Numbers- are the whole numbers
like 0,1,2,3,…
2. Integers- negative whole numbers are
included
3. Rational Numbers- positive and negative
fractions
4. Real Numbers- are more general. They
are represented by decimals that go on
forever, like 3.14159…
5. Complex Numbers- blah blah(EDIT!!!)
 OPERATIONS AND FUNCTIONS
OPERATION
It is something you apply to two(sometimes more) mathematical
objects to get a third object

FUNCTION
It is often used in algebraic formulas, which are just short-hand
ways to explain what the rule is, but they can be defined by any
convenient method.

Another term with the same meaning as function is

transformation: the rule transforms the first object into the
second.

Operations and functions are very similar concepts. Both of them

are processes rather than things.
 “THINGIFICATION OF PROCESSES”
Thingification means the process of turning something into thing
Dictionary term: REIFICATION

Mathematical things have no real existence in the real world. They

are abstractions, so processes are no less than things than the
“things” to which they are applied.

Mathematicians are not the only people who play the thingification
game.
• The legal profession talks of “theft” as if it were a thing; it even
knows what kind of thing it is—a crime.
• Computer scientists have data structures for things that can
be built up from numbers by thingifying processes. Common
examples for computer science are lists(set of numbers written
in sequence) and arrays(tables of numbers with several rows
and column)
 Principia Mathematica which was written by Bertrand Russel and
Alfred North Whitehead began with an idea of set, a collection of
things. Major part of it went into devising appropriate data
structures for the important objects of mathematical thought.

T JUST A COLLECTION OF ISOLATED FACTS: IT IS MORE

The ingredient that knits this landscape together is proof. Proof

determines the route from one fact to another. It is a sequence of
statements, each of which follows from previous statements in the
sequence or from agreed axioms that in effect define the area of
mathematics being studied.

Mathematical proof is a story about a mathematics that works.

A mathematician would write the proof out in more formal
style, something like the textbook, but the important thing
is to tell a convincing story.