09/08/2023

In Folha, Viana talks about the origin of mathematics.

Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S. Paulo.

This week, Folhinha invited children to think about "who invented this math thing ." Many older readers probably ask themselves the same question…

Mathematical thinking is certainly as old as humanity. The idea of number, for example, arose from the act of counting, which we have practiced since the beginning of time. Moreover, we know that other animals are capable of counting, and I've already mentioned here that certain bees can distinguish even from odd numbers.

Other mathematical concepts, such as shape, magnitude, or pattern, were also discovered from the daily experiences of our distant ancestors. Among them, the observation of the sky: understanding and predicting the movement of the stars and their implications for our destinies has always been a great motivation for the advancement of mathematics.

The oldest known mathematical object, the Ishango bone , discovered in Central Africa in 1950, dates back 20,000 years. It features incisions that appear to be counting records, although some experts believe they are lists of special numbers, including some prime numbers. Others suggest they are astronomical data or even some kind of Paleolithic "slide rule".

When humanity entered history through the invention of writing, it brought mathematics with it. The earliest mathematical texts – the Plimpton 322 manuscript (Babylon, 2000 BC), the Moscow papyrus (Egypt, 1900 BC), and the famous Rhind papyrus (Egypt, 1800 BC) – list various problems in arithmetic, geometry, and algebra, and introduce some ideas familiar to our students, such as the number π (pi) and the Pythagorean theorem.

For millennia, mathematics developed along the banks of the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, always as a tool to solve everyday problems and help us understand the world around us. Pythagoras (570 – 495 BC), however, came much later. Even though he didn't discover the theorem that made him famous, he made many other important contributions. Among them is the word "mathematics" itself, from the Greek mathema, which means "learning, study, knowledge".

It has been inherited by almost all modern languages, with one surprising exception. In Dutch, mathematics is called "wiskunde," a word invented by the scientist Simon Stevin (1548–1620): "wis" has to do with certainty, accuracy, while "kunde" refers to art, study.

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