Numbers are the cornerstone of the building of mathematics, and they are also the earliest mathematical objects that people study.
Millions of years ago. Our ancestors only knew "yes", "nothing" and "much".
The concept of "less", but I don't know what it is. With the progress of civilization, these are ambiguous.
Ideas cannot meet the needs of production and life. For example, China has The Book of Changes.
In ancient times, knots were ruled. When an important event happens, just hit one on the rope.
A knot as a marker.
Although this method is simple, it at least shows that people already have the concept of number.
After writing appeared, people tried to record mathematics in the form of symbols. So it appeared.
Various recording methods are introduced. The ancient Egyptians used "|" to indicate one and "∨" to indicate two;
The ancient Romans used "I" for one and "II" for two. This method is effective, but
But when the quantity is very large, it is very inconvenient to record. For example, if we want to express for 100 hours, do we have to write?
A hundred "|"? Of course, the ancient Romans also saw this problem and invented it.
They are represented by Roman numerals ⅰ, ⅱ, ⅲ, ⅳ, ⅴ, ⅶ, ⅷ, ⅸ, ⅹ, L and C respectively.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, 10,50, 100。 It seems that the problem has been solved,
However, it is still very difficult to express 10 thousand. This is why Roman numerals are not widely used.
The failure of Roman numerals shows that any counting method that wants each number to correspond to a symbol is
It's in vain. It was not until the eighth century AD that Indians invented a kind of medicine containing only 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
The notation of symbols 7, 8, 9 and 9, and it is agreed that the position of the number determines the size of the value. For example, numbers
In the word 89, 8 means eight tens and 9 means nine ones. This means that any number is light and one.
For something. As a result, this invention was quickly brought into the Arab capital Baghdad by businessmen. and
Soon spread, called Arabic numerals. Because this symbol is concise and clear, it is
It is still in use today. Become the universal language of mathematics in the world. No wonder Engels called it "the most wonderful hair"
Ming ".
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The origin of Arabic numerals
There are many numbering methods in the world, one of which is Arabic numerals: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
In fact, Arabic numerals were not invented by Arabs, but by ancient Indians.
Ancient Indians carved some horizontal lines on stone tablets to indicate numbers, one horizontal line indicated 1 and the other horizontal line indicated 2 ... Later, they used palm leaves or birch bark as writing materials and connected some strokes, for example, two horizontal lines of 2 were written as z, three horizontal lines of 3 were written as z, and so on.
In the 8th century AD, an Indian mathematician named Kank came to Baghdad, the capital of Arabia, with digital books and astronomical charts. At this time, China's papermaking had just been introduced into Arabia. As a result, his book was quickly translated into Arabic and spread in the Arabian Peninsula, and Arabic numerals also spread to all parts of Arabia.
With the commercial exchanges between the East and the West, these figures were introduced to Europe by Arab businessmen in the12nd century. Europeans love this convenient and applicable notation, and they think it is Arabic numerals, which has caused this historical misunderstanding. Although people later knew the truth of the matter, they never corrected it because they were used to it.
After Arabic numerals spread to European countries, their appearance gradually changed due to reproduction. After more than 65,438+0,000 years of continuous improvement, it was not until 65,438+0,480 that the writing of these numbers was similar to the current writing. 1522, Arabic numerals appeared in the book "The Englishman and Stowe", which was basically consistent with the current writing.
Because Arabic numerals and their decimal notation have many advantages, they are gradually spread all over the world and used by all countries in the world.
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The origin of Arabic numerals
After the ancient Indians created Arabic numerals, they spread to the Arab region around the 7th century. By the 3rd century A.D./KLOC-0, the Italian mathematician Fibonacci wrote Abacus, in which he introduced Arabic numerals in detail. Later, these figures spread from the Arab region to Europe. Europeans only know that these numbers are imported from the Arab region, so they are called Arabic numbers. Later, these figures spread from Europe to all countries in the world.
Arabic numerals were introduced into China around 13 ~ 14 century. Because there was a number called "chip" in ancient China, which was easy to write, Arabic numerals were not popularized and used in China at that time. At the beginning of this century, with the absorption and introduction of foreign mathematical achievements by China, Arabic numerals began to be used slowly in China, and only now have they been popularized and used in China for more than 100 years. Arabic numerals have now become the most commonly used numbers in people's study, life and communication.
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The origin of Roman numerals
Roman numerals are a quantitative representation that is rarely used now. It came into being later than the numbers in China and Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and even later than the Egyptian single digit. However, its appearance marks the progress of an ancient civilization. About 2500 years ago, the Romans were still in the early stage of cultural development, when they used their fingers as computing tools. To represent 1, 2, 3 and 4 objects, extend 1, 2, 3 and 4 fingers respectively; It means that five objects stretch out a hand; It means that 10 object sticks out two hands. This habit has been used by human beings until today. People often use such gestures to represent numbers in conversation. At that time, in order to record these numbers, the Romans drew I, II and III on sheepskin instead of the number of fingers. In order to represent a hand, it is written as a "V", which represents the open shape of thumb and forefinger; When expressing two hands, it is drawn as "ⅴ ⅴ", and later it is written as "ⅹ", with one hand up and the other hand down, which is the prototype of Roman numerals.
Later, in order to represent a larger number, the Romans used the symbol C to represent 100, which is the first letter of the Latin word "century", which means 100. The symbol m stands for 1000. M is the first letter of the Latin word "mile", which means 1000. Take half of the letter c as the symbol l, which means 50. 500 is represented by the letter D. If a horizontal line is drawn above the number, the number will be enlarged by 1000 times. In this way, Roman numerals have the following seven symbols: I (1) v (5) x (10) l (50) c (100) d (500) m (1000).
Roman numerals and decimal numerals have different meanings. They have no number representing zero and have nothing to do with the carry system. The basic method of using Roman numerals to represent numbers is generally to write several Roman numerals in a column, and the number it represents is equal to the sum of these figures added together. But there are exceptions. When the symbol I, X or C is located after a large number, it is used as an addend. In front of large numbers, it is subtraction.
For example: III = 3, IV = 4, VI = 6, XIX= 19, XX=20, XLV=45, MCMXXC= 1980.
Roman numerals are rarely used by later generations because they are difficult to write, and some clocks and watches still use them to represent hours. In addition, it will also be used for manuscript chapters and scientific classification.
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Usually, we call 1, 2,3,4 ... 9,0 "Arabic numerals". In fact, these numbers were not created by Arabs. They first appeared in ancient India. But why do people call it "Arabic numerals"? It is said that as early as the 7th century, Arabs gradually conquered other peoples around them and established the Great Empire of Sarrasin, stretching from India in the east to North Africa and Spain in the west. Later, this great empire split into two countries, East and West. Because successive monarchs of the two countries have attached importance to culture and art, the capitals of both countries are very prosperous, and Baghdad, the eastern capital, is even better. In this way, Greek culture from the west and Indian culture from the east are gathered here. Arabs understood and digested two cultures and formed a new Arab culture.
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The Origin of Capitalized Numbers in Chinese Characters
In economic communication, people have to deal with numbers. If you use account books, checks and invoices, send money to the post office and go through the deposit withdrawal procedures at the bank, the amount should be capitalized in Chinese characters to prevent the amount from being altered and cheated. The use of uppercase Chinese characters to prevent corruption and deception began in the early Ming Dynasty.
During the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang, a peasant, a major corruption case occurred in Guo Huan. Guo Huan was an assistant minister of finance. During his tenure, he colluded with local officials and embezzled government money and food. The total amount of corruption was 24 million stone refined grain, which was almost equal to the total amount of autumn grain collected at that time. This big case involves twelve court ministers and tens of thousands of local officials. Zhu Yuanzhang was shocked by this and ordered Guo Huan and tens of thousands of his associates to be beheaded. At the same time, strict laws have been enacted to punish corruption. In order to put an end to financial chaos, the state financial management has taken some effective measures. One of the most important ones is to change the Chinese characters "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, ten, and thousand" into "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, one, one, three, four, five, four, four". The implementation of this method has blocked some loopholes in account management and played a certain role in consolidating the new Ming regime. These China capital figures have been used up to now and play an important role in China's economic life.