Interesting mathematical facts and information. Facts about mathematics

This is very interesting important science- mathematics.

You may not be a mathematician, you may not know him very well. high level, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that we encounter mathematics almost everywhere.

Mathematics occurs both at work and in everyday life, numbers follow us everywhere.

So I suggest you familiarize yourself with interesting, unusual facts from the world of this serious science. There is a place for the frivolous or simply fascinating, in any exact science. The main thing is the desire to find it.

1. Among all the figures with the same perimeter, the circle will have the most large area. Conversely, among all shapes with the same area, the circle will have the smallest perimeter.

2. In fact, a moment is a unit of time that lasts approximately a hundredth of a second.

3. The number 18 is the only number (other than zero) whose sum of digits is half as large as itself.

4. In a group of 23 people or more, the probability that two people will have the same birthday exceeds 50%, and in a group of 60 people this probability is about 99%.

5. In mathematics there are: braid theory, game theory and knot theory.

6. The pie can be cut into eight equal pieces with three touches of the knife. Moreover, in two ways.

7. 2 and 5 are the only prime numbers that end in 2 and 5.

8. Zero – singular, which cannot be written in Roman numerals.

9. The equal sign “=” was first used by the Briton Robert Record in 1557.

10. The sum of the numbers from 1 to 100 is 5050.

11. Since 1995, Taipei, Taiwan, has allowed residents to remove the number four because Chinese this figure sounds identical to the word “death”. Many buildings do not have a fourth floor.

12. It is believed that the number 13 became unlucky because of the Last Supper, which was attended by 13 people, including Jesus. The 13th was Judas Iscariot.

13. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is a little-known British mathematician who dedicated most of your life logic. However, he is worldwide famous writer, who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

14. The first female mathematician in history is considered to be the Greek Hypatia, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt in IV-V centuries AD.

15. American George Dantzig, as a student, was late for class and mistakenly accepted the equations written on the blackboard as homework. With difficulty, but the future scientist coped with them. As it turned out later, these were two “unsolvable” problems in statistics, the solution of which scientists had been struggling for many years.

16. Modern genius and mathematics professor Stephen Hawking claims that he only studied mathematics at school. When teaching mathematics at Oxford, Stephen simply read the textbook a couple of weeks ahead of his own students.

17. In 1992, like-minded Australians united to win the lottery. There was $27 million at stake. The number of combinations 6 out of 44 was just over seven million, with a lottery ticket costing $1. These like-minded people created a fund into which each of the 2,500 people invested three thousand dollars. The result is a win and a return of 9 thousand to everyone.

18. Sofya Kovalevskaya, for the sake of science, had to arrange a fictitious marriage. In Russia, women were prohibited from studying science. The father was against his daughter going abroad. The only way It turned out to be marriage. True, later, the fictitious marriage became actual and Sophia even gave birth to a daughter.

Interesting facts Not everyone is familiar with mathematics. In modern times, mathematics is used everywhere, even despite technological progress. The science of mathematics is valuable to people. Interesting facts about her will interest even children.

1. People did not always use the decimal number system. Previously, a system of 20 numbers was used.

2. In Rome there was never a number 0, despite the fact that the people there are smart and know how to count.

3.Sofya Kovalevskaya proved that you can learn mathematics at home.

4.The records that were found on bones in Swaziland are the oldest mathematical work.

5.The decimal number system began to be used due to the presence of only 10 fingers on the hands.

6. Thanks to mathematics, it is known that a tie can be tied in 177,147 ways.

7.In 1900, all mathematical results could be contained in 80 books.

8. The word “algebra” has the same pronunciation in all languages ​​of the world.

9. Real and imaginary number in mathematics was introduced by Rene Descartes.

10. The sum of all numbers from 1 to 100 is 5050.

11.The Egyptians did not know fractions.

12.Calculating the sum of all the numbers on the roulette wheel, you get the devil’s number 666.

13.With three touches of the knife, the cake is divided into 8 equal parts. And there are only 2 ways to do this.

14.You cannot write zero in Roman numerals.

15.The first woman mathematician is Hypatia, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt.

16.Zero is the only number that has several names.

17. There is a world mathematics day.

18.The bill was created in the state of Indiana.

19.The writer Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland, was a mathematician.

20. Thanks to mathematics, logic arose.

21. Using arithmetic progression, Moivre was able to predict the date of his own death.

22. Solitaire is considered the simplest mathematical solitaire game.

23. Euclid was one of the most mysterious mathematicians. No information about him himself has reached his descendants, but there are mathematical works.

24.Most mathematicians in school years behaved disgustingly.

25.Alfred Nobel decided not to include mathematics in the list of his prizes.

26. In mathematics there is braid theory, knot theory and game theory.

27.You won’t see the number 4 almost anywhere in Taiwan.

28. For the sake of mathematics, Sofya Kovalevskaya had to enter into a fictitious marriage.

30. Our whole life consists of mathematics.

20 interesting facts about mathematics for children

1. It was Robert Record who began to use the equals sign in 1557.

2.Researchers from America believe that students who chew gum during a math exam achieve more.

3.The number 13 is considered unlucky due to the biblical legend.

4. Even Napoleon Bonaparte wrote mathematical works.

5.Fingers and pebbles were considered the first computing devices.

6.The ancient Egyptians did not have multiplication tables and rules.

7.The number 666 is shrouded in legends and is the most mystical of all.

8.Before the 19th century negative numbers were not used.

9.If you translate the number 4 from Chinese, it means “death.”

10. Italians don't like the number 17.

11. A large number of people consider 7 to be a lucky number.

12.The most large number in the world it is a centillion.

13.The only prime numbers that end in 2 and 5 are numbers 2 and 5.

14.The number pi was first introduced into use in the 6th century BC by the Indian mathematician Budhayana.

15.In the 6th century, quadratic equations were created in India.

16.If a triangle is drawn on a sphere, then all its angles will be only right angles.

17.The first signs of addition and subtraction familiar to us were described almost 520 years ago in the book “Rules of Algebra,” written by Jan Widmann.

18. Augustin Cauchy, who is a French mathematician, wrote more than 700 works in which he proved the finiteness of the number of stars, the finiteness of the natural series of numbers and the finiteness of the world.

19.The work of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid consists of 13 volumes.

20. For the first time, mathematics was brought into a separate branch this science namely the ancient Greeks.

These are not only abstruse theories and assumptions of scientists, these are also funny observations based on figures and numbers. If you think about it, mathematics surrounds people everywhere - we are looking for required addresses, cut the pizza into a certain number of pieces and keep track of the time.

On all this, as well as on standard science, they are based interesting observations and notes on mathematics, which may be of interest not only to specialists, but also to the curious.

They relate not only to different spheres of human life, but also to different eras. For example, stories from the very ancient science. The first work of mathematicians was found in Swaziland. The find was a very ordinary bone, 37 thousand years old, on which dashes and strokes were applied. Archaeologists suggested that the bone allowed people of the past to record some calculations.

Mathematical texts appeared much later. Their first example is considered Babylonian tablets, which are believed to have been created by scientists of the past as early as 1900 or 1800 BC. After this period, other evidence of the gradual development of science began to be found, captured in different ways, starting from notes on the walls and ending with fully executed paper works.


also relate to the development of science itself. For example, it was estimated that all mathematical knowledge, which existed in 1900, could easily fit into 80 books. After a little more than a hundred years, the knowledge that humanity has accumulated could not be contained in 100,000 books. World mathematical records also turn out to be very interesting. For example, in 2010, in the traditional World Mathematics Day More than one million students from 235 countries around the world were able to answer nearly 500 billion questions together.

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They turn out to be no less interesting than stories about the education and development of science itself. Many people are especially interested in historical role women working with numbers. The first representative of the fair sex to take up mathematics is considered to be a Greek woman named Hypatia, who lived in Alexandria back in the fourth and fifth centuries AD.

Another bright one historical figure science can be called Sofia Kovalevskaya, who arranged a fictitious marriage only in order to get the opportunity to engage in science in the conditions of harsh times, when women were not allowed to do much without the knowledge of their husbands. It was only later that Sophia gave birth to a daughter in this marriage and the relationship with the spouses became real, but still the original purpose of the marriage was related exclusively to science.


Speaking of male mathematicians, it is worth noting the fact that most of them have left their mark on history in very interesting ways. Few people know the scientist Charles Dodgson, but almost everyone has heard at least something about Lewis Carroll. Surprisingly, these two individuals are only different professions one person who was lucky to become famous precisely as a writer.

The most interesting facts about mathematics for curious people they usually represent unexpected facts about numbers and examples from probability theory. Some interesting facts include, for example:

  • on Taiwan and in some other places in Asia the number “4” is almost completely absent, since its translation means “death”;
  • 2520 this is the same number that is divisible by all numbers from 1 to 10, other similar numbers are already greater than 2520;
  • after a long analysis of all available options, mathematicians found that there are exactly 177,147 ways to tie such an accessory as tie;

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  • number 18 unique (if you ignore the zero), because the sum of its digits is half its size;
  • modern decimal system calculus arose due to the presence of exactly ten fingers in a person, it is assumed that it was thanks to this that it was more convenient for him to make the necessary calculations.

At all, interesting facts about mathematics is a huge collection of interesting stories and observations, based on numbers. That's why it's interesting scientific observations may be of interest not only to scientists, but also to those people who like to learn something new and exciting.

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Even if you don’t understand anything about mathematics, even if you hated this subject at school, even if you consider yourself a pure humanitarian... In general, in any case, you will like these facts, we guarantee!

1. The English mathematician Abraham de Moivre, in old age, once discovered that the duration of his sleep increased by 15 minutes a day. Having compiled arithmetic progression, he determined the date when it would reach 24 hours - November 27, 1754. On this day he died.

2. Religious Jews try to avoid Christian symbols and, in general, signs similar to a cross. For example, students in some Israeli schools, instead of the plus sign, write a sign that repeats the inverted letter “t”.

3. The authenticity of a euro banknote can be verified by its serial number letters and eleven numbers. You need to replace the letter with it serial number V english alphabet, add this number with the others, then add the digits of the result until we get one digit. If this number is 8, then the bill is genuine.

Another way to check is to add the numbers in a similar way, but without the letter. The result of one letter and number must correspond to a specific country, since euros are printed in different countries. For example, for Germany it is X2.

4. There is an opinion that Alfred Nobel did not include mathematics in the list of disciplines of his prize because his wife cheated on him with a mathematician. In fact, Nobel never married.

The real reason Nobel's ignorance of mathematics is unknown, but there are several assumptions. For example, at that time there was already a prize in mathematics from Swedish king. Other - mathematicians don't do it important inventions for humanity, since this science is purely theoretical.

5. The Reuleaux triangle is geometric figure, formed by the intersection of three equal circles radius a with centers at the vertices equilateral triangle with side a. A drill made on the basis of the Reuleaux triangle allows you to drill square holes (with an inaccuracy of 2%).

6. In Russian mathematical literature zero is not natural number, and in Western, on the contrary, it belongs to the set of natural numbers.

7. American mathematician George Danzig, while a graduate student at the university, was once late for class and mistook the equations written on the blackboard for homework. It seemed more difficult to him than usual, but after a few days he was able to complete it. It turned out that he solved two “unsolvable” problems in statistics that many scientists had struggled with.

8. The sum of all numbers on a roulette wheel in a casino is equal to the “number of the beast” - 666.

9. Sofya Kovalevskaya became acquainted with mathematics in early childhood, when there was not enough wallpaper for her room, instead of which sheets with Ostrogradsky’s lectures on differential and integral calculus were pasted.

Today, we will share with you interesting and unusual facts from the world of this serious science. There is a place for the frivolous or simply fascinating in any exact science. The main thing is the desire to find it...

The English mathematician Abraham de Moivre, in his old age, once discovered that the duration of his sleep increased by 15 minutes a day. Having made an arithmetic progression, he determined the date when it would reach 24 hours - November 27, 1754. On this day he died.
Religious Jews try to avoid Christian symbols and, in general, signs similar to a cross. For example, students in some Israeli schools, instead of the plus sign, write a sign that repeats the inverted letter “t”.
The authenticity of a euro banknote can be verified by its serial number, letters and eleven digits. You need to replace the letter with its serial number in the English alphabet, add this number with the rest, then add the digits of the result until we get one digit.

If this number is 8, then the bill is genuine. Another way to check is to add the numbers in a similar way, but without the letter. The result of one letter and number must correspond to a specific country, since euros are printed in different countries. For example, for Germany it is X2.
The word “algebra” sounds the same in all languages ​​of the world. It is of Arabic origin, and introduced it into use great mathematician Central Asia late 8th - early 9th century Mahammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. His mathematical treatise was called “Aldzhebr wal muqabala”, from the first word of which the international name of science - algebra - was derived.
There is an opinion that Alfred Nobel did not include mathematics in the list of disciplines of his prize because his wife cheated on him with a mathematician. In fact, Nobel never married. The real reason Nobel ignored mathematics is unknown, but there are several assumptions. For example, at that time there was already a prize in mathematics from the Swedish king. Another thing is that mathematicians do not make important inventions for humanity, since this science is purely theoretical.
The Reuleaux triangle is a geometric figure formed by the intersection of three equal circles of radius a with centers at the vertices of an equilateral triangle with side a. A drill made on the basis of the Reuleaux triangle allows you to drill square holes (with an inaccuracy of 2%).

In Russian mathematical literature, zero is not a natural number, but in Western literature, on the contrary, it belongs to the set of natural numbers.

The sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel in a casino is equal to the devil’s number - 666.
In 1897, Indiana passed a bill establishing the value of Pi as 3.2. This bill did not become law thanks to the timely intervention of a university professor.
Sofya Kovalevskaya became acquainted with mathematics in early childhood, when there was not enough wallpaper for her room, instead of which sheets of Ostrogradsky’s lectures on differential and integral calculus were pasted.

To get the opportunity to engage in science, Sofya Kovalevskaya had to enter into a fictitious marriage and leave Russia. At that time Russian universities they simply did not accept women, and in order to emigrate, a girl had to have the consent of her father or husband. Since Sophia's father was categorically against it, she married the young scientist Vladimir Kovalevsky. Although in the end their marriage became de facto, and they had a daughter.
The decimal number system we use arose because humans have 10 fingers. The ability for abstract counting did not appear in people right away, and it turned out to be most convenient to use fingers for counting. The Mayan civilization and, independently of them, the Chukchi historically used the twenty-digit number system, using fingers not only on the hands, but also on the toes. The duodecimal and sexagesimal systems common in ancient Sumer and Babylon were also based on the use of hands: thumb the phalanges of the other fingers of the palm, the number of which is 12, were counted.
In many sources, often with the purpose of encouraging poorly performing students, there is a statement that Einstein failed mathematics at school or, moreover, generally studied very poorly in all subjects. In fact, everything was not like that: Albert was still in early age began to show talent in mathematics and knew it far beyond the school curriculum.

Einstein later failed to enter the Swiss university polytechnic school Zurich, showing top results in physics and mathematics, but without obtaining the required number of points in other disciplines. Having mastered these subjects, a year later, at the age of 17, he became a student at this institution.
One lady friend asked Einstein to call her, but warned that her phone number was very difficult to remember: - 24-361. Do you remember? Repeat! Surprised, Einstein replied: “Of course I remember!” Two dozen and 19 squared.
Every time you shuffle the deck, you create a sequence of cards that is very high degree probability never existed in the universe. The number of combinations in a standard playing deck is 52!, or 8x1067. To achieve at least a 50% chance of getting a combination a second time, you need to do 9x1033 shuffles. And if you hypothetically force the entire population of the planet to continuously shuffle cards over the past 500 years and get a new deck every second, you will end up with no more than 1020 different sequences.
Leonardo da Vinci came up with a rule according to which the square of the diameter of a tree trunk equal to the sum squares of the diameters of the branches taken at a common fixed height. Later studies confirmed it with only one difference - the degree in the formula is not necessarily equal to 2, but lies in the range from 1.8 to 2.3. Traditionally it was believed that this pattern is explained by the fact that a tree with such a structure has an optimal mechanism for supplying branches nutrients. However, in 2010 American physicist Christophe Alloy found a simpler mechanical explanation for the phenomenon: if we consider a tree as a fractal, then Leonardo’s law minimizes the likelihood of branches breaking under the influence of wind.
Ants are able to explain to each other the path to food, they can count and perform simple tasks. arithmetic operations. For example, when a scout ant finds food in a specially designed maze, it returns and explains how to get to it to other ants.

If at this time the labyrinth is replaced with a similar one, that is, the pheromone trail is removed, the scout’s relatives will still find food. In another experiment, a scout searches a maze of many identical branches, and after his explanation, other insects immediately run to the designated branch. But if you first accustom the scout to the fact that food contains more likely will be in 10, 20, and so on branches, the ants take them as basic ones and begin to navigate by adding or subtracting the required number from them, that is, they use a system similar to Roman numerals.
In February 1992, the Virginia 6/44 lottery draw had a $27 million jackpot. Number of all possible combinations in this form of lottery there were just over 7 million, and each ticket cost 1 dollar. Enterprising people from Australia created a fund by collecting $3 thousand from 2,500 people, bought the required number of forms and manually filled them in with various combinations of numbers, receiving a triple profit after paying taxes.
Stephen Hawking is one of the leading theoretical physicists and popularizer of science. In a story about himself, Hawking mentioned that he became a professor of mathematics without receiving any mathematics education since high school. When Hawking began teaching mathematics at Oxford, he read the textbook two weeks ahead of his own students.

Laboratory studies have shown that bees are able to choose the optimal route. After localizing the flowers placed in different places, the bee makes a flight and returns back in such a way that the final path turns out to be the shortest. Thus, these insects effectively cope with the classic “traveling salesman problem” from computer science, the solution of which modern computers, depending on the number of points, they can spend more than one day.
Exists mathematical law Benford, which states that the distribution of the first digits in the numbers of any data sets from real world unevenly. Numbers from 1 to 4 in such sets (namely, fertility or mortality statistics, house numbers, etc.) are found in the first position much more often than numbers from 5 to 9. Practical Application This law is that it allows you to check the accuracy of accounting and financial data, election results and much more. In some US states, data inconsistency with Benford's law is even formal evidence in court.
There are many parables about how one person invites another to pay him for some service in the following way: on the first square of the chessboard he will put one grain of rice, on the second - two, and so on: on each subsequent square twice as much as on the previous one. As a result, the one who pays in this way will certainly go bankrupt. This is not surprising: it is estimated that the total weight of rice will be more than 460 billion tons

Pi has two unofficial holiday. The first is March 14, because this day in America is written as 3.14. The second is July 22, which in European format is written as 22/7, and the value of such a fraction is a fairly popular approximate value of Pi.
American mathematician George Dantzig, while a graduate student at the university, was late for class one day and mistook the equations written on the blackboard for homework. It seemed more difficult to him than usual, but after a few days he was able to complete it. It turned out that he solved two “unsolvable” problems in statistics that many scientists had struggled with.
Among all the figures with the same perimeter, the circle will have the largest area. Conversely, among all shapes with the same area, the circle will have the smallest perimeter.
In fact, moment is a unit of time that lasts approximately a hundredth of a second.
Rene Descartes introduced the terms " real number" and "imaginary number".
The cake can be cut into eight equal pieces with three strokes of the knife. Moreover, there are two ways to do this.

In a group of 23 or more people, the probability that two of them will have the same birthday is greater than 50 percent, and in a group of 60 people or more, the probability is about 99 percent.
If you multiply your age by 7, then multiply by 1443, the result will be your age written three times in a row.
In mathematics there are: braid theory, game theory and knot theory.
Zero "0" is the only number that cannot be written in Roman numerals.
Maximum number, which can be written in Roman numerals without violating Shvartsman's rules (rules for writing Roman numerals) - 3999 (MMMCMXCIX) - more than three digits in a row cannot be written
The equal sign “=” was first used by the Briton Robert Record in 1557. He wrote that there is no more identical items than two equal and parallel segments.
The sum of all numbers from one to one hundred is 5050.
In the Taiwanese city of Taipei, residents are allowed to omit the number four because in Chinese it sounds identical to the word for "death." For this reason, many buildings in the city do not have a fourth floor.

The number thirteen, presumably, began to be considered unlucky because of the biblical tale of the Last Supper, where exactly thirteen people were present. Moreover, the thirteenth was Judas Iscariot.
A little-known mathematician from Britain devoted most of his life to studying the laws of logic. His name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. This name is not known a large number people, but the pseudonym under which he wrote his literary masterpieces is known - Lewis Carroll.
Greek Hepatia is considered the first female mathematician in history. She lived in the 4th-5th centuries in Egyptian Alexandria.
A recent study suggests that in male-dominated fields, the weaker sex tends to disguise typically feminine qualities in order to appear more convincing. For example, female mathematicians prefer to go without makeup.
Did you know that one of the curved lines is called the "Agnese Curl" in honor of the world's first female mathematics professor Maria Gaetano Agnese?
Lermontov, being versatile talented person, besides literary creativity was a good artist and loved mathematics. Elements higher mathematics, analytical geometry, the beginning of the differential and integral calculus fascinated Lermontov throughout his life. He always carried with him a mathematics textbook by the French author Bezu.

In the 18th century, the chess machine of a Hungarian mechanic was popular Wolfgang von Kempelen, who showed his car at the Austrian and Russian courts, and then showed it publicly in Paris and London. Napoleon I I played with this machine, confident that I was testing my strength with the machine. In reality, no chess machine operated automatically. A skilled live chess player was hiding inside, who moved the pieces. In the middle of the last century, the famous machine gun came to America and ended its existence there during a fire in Philadelphia.
In a chess game of 40 moves, the number of options for developing the game can exceed the number of atoms in outer space. After all, everything is possible huge amount options - 1.5 by 10 to the 128th degree.
Napoleon Bonaparte wrote mathematical works. And one geometric fact is called “Napoleon's Problem”
The leaves on a plant branch are always located in in strict order, spaced apart by certain angle clockwise or counterclockwise. The size of the angle is different various plants, but it can always be described as a fraction, the numerator and denominator of which are numbers from the Fibonacci series. For example, for beech this angle is 1/3, or 120°, for oak and apricot - 2/5, for pear and poplar - 3/8, for willow and almond - 5/13, etc. This arrangement allows the leaves to receive moisture and sunlight most efficiently.
In ancient times, in Rus' the bucket (about 12 liters) and shtof (a tenth of a bucket) were used as units of volume measurement. In the USA, England and other countries, a barrel (about 159 liters), a gallon (about 4 liters), a bushel (about 36 liters), and a pint (from 470 to 568 cubic centimeters) are used.

Small ancient Russian measures of length - span and cubit.
Span- this is the distance between the elongated large and index fingers hands at their greatest distance (span size ranged from 19 cm to 23 cm). They say “Don’t give up an inch of land,” meaning not to give up, not to give up even the smallest part of your land. About very smart person They say: “Seven spans in the forehead.”
Elbow- this is the distance from the end of the extended middle finger of the hand to the bend of the elbow (the size of the elbow ranged from 38 cm to 46 cm and corresponded to two spans). There is a saying: “He’s as tall as a fingernail, but his beard is as long as his elbow.”
Quadratic equations were created in the 11th century in India. The most a large number, used in India, was 10 to the 53rd power, while the Greeks and Romans operated only with numbers to the 6th power.
Probably everyone has noticed in themselves and in those around them that among the numbers there are favorite ones, to which we have a special passion. For example, we really love “round numbers,” that is, those ending in 0 or 5. Addiction to certain numbers, their preference for others is inherent in human nature much deeper than is usually thought. In this regard, the tastes of not only Europeans and their ancestors, for example, the ancient Romans, but even primitive peoples of other parts of the world converge.
Every census usually shows an overabundance of people whose ages end in 5 or 0; there are many more of them than there should be. The reason lies, of course, in the fact that people do not remember firmly how old they are and, showing their age, involuntarily “round up” the years. It is remarkable that a similar predominance of “round” ages is observed on the grave monuments of the ancient Romans.
We think of negative numbers as something natural, but this was not always the case.
Negative numbers were first legalized in China in the 3rd century, but were used only for exceptional cases, as they were considered, in general, meaningless. A little later, negative numbers began to be used in India to denote debts, but in the west they did not take root - the famous Diophantus of Alexandria argued that the equation 4x+20=0 was absurd.

In Europe, negative numbers appeared thanks to Leonardo of Pisa (Fibonacci), who also introduced it to solve financial problems with debts - in 1202 he first used negative numbers to calculate his losses.
Nevertheless, until the 17th century, negative numbers were “in the fold” and even in the 17th century, the famous mathematician Blaise Pascal argued that 0-4 = 0 because there is no such number that can be less than nothing, and until the 19th century mathematicians often discarded negative numbers in his calculations, considering them meaningless...
The first “computing devices” that people used in ancient times were fingers and pebbles. Later, tags with notches and ropes with knots appeared. IN Ancient Egypt And Ancient Greece long before our era, they used an abacus - a board with stripes along which pebbles moved. It was the first device specifically designed for computing. Over time, the abacus was improved - in the Roman abacus, pebbles or balls moved along grooves. The abacus lasted until the 18th century, when it was replaced by written calculations. Russian abacus - abacus appeared in the 16th century. They are still used today. The big advantage of Russian accounts is that they are based on decimal system number, and not in quinary, like all other abaci.
The oldest mathematical work was found in Swaziland - a baboon bone with incised lines (bone from Lembobo), which were supposedly the result of some kind of calculation. The age of the bone is 37 thousand years.


An even more complex mathematical work was found in France - the
whose bone, on which lines are engraved, grouped in groups of five. The age of the bone is about 30 thousand years.
And finally, the famous bone from Ishango (Congo) on which groups are engraved prime numbers. It is believed that the bone originated 18-20 thousand years ago.
But the Babylonian tablets with code name Plimpton 322, created in 1800-1900 BC.
The ancient Egyptians did not have multiplication tables or rules. Nevertheless, they knew how to multiply and used a “computer” method for this - decomposing numbers into a binary series. How did they do it? Here's how:
For example, you need to multiply 22 by 35.
Write down 22 35
Now we divide the left number by 2, and multiply the right one by 2. We underline numbers on the right only when it is divisible by 2.
So,

Now add 70+140+560=770
Correct result!
The Egyptians did not know fractions like 2/3 or 3/4. No numerators! Egyptian priests operated only with fractions, where the numerator was always 1 and the fraction was written like this: an integer with an oval above it. That is, 4 with an oval meant 1/4.
What about fractions like 5/6? Egyptian mathematicians divided them into fractions with the numerator 1. That is, 1/2 + 1/3. That is, 2 and 3 with an oval at the top.
Well, it's simple. 2/7 = 1/7 + 1/7. Not at all! Another rule of the Egyptians was the absence of repeating numbers in a series of fractions. That is, 2/7 in their opinion was 1/4 + 1/28.



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