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c. 20,000 BC — Nile Valley, Ishango Bone: suggested, though disputed, as the earliest reference to prime numbers as also a common number. [1]c. 3400 BC — the Sumerians invent the first so-known numeral system, [dubious – discuss] and a system of weights and measures.
At roughly the same time, the Han Chinese and the Romans both invented the wheeled odometer device for measuring distances traveled, the Roman model first described by the Roman civil engineer and architect Vitruvius (c. 80 BC – c. 15 BC). [102] The device was used at least until the reign of emperor Commodus (r.
In doing so, he discovered the connection between the Riemann zeta function and prime numbers; this is known as the Euler product formula for the Riemann zeta function. [85] Euler invented the totient function φ(n), the number of positive integers less than or equal to the integer n that are coprime to n.
Many areas of mathematics began with the study of real world problems, before the underlying rules and concepts were identified and defined as abstract structures.For example, geometry has its origins in the calculation of distances and areas in the real world; algebra started with methods of solving problems in arithmetic.
Number systems have progressed from the use of fingers and tally marks, perhaps more than 40,000 years ago, to the use of sets of glyphs able to represent any conceivable number efficiently. The earliest known unambiguous notations for numbers emerged in Mesopotamia about 5000 or 6000 years ago.
In mathematics, the notion of number has been extended over the centuries to include zero (0), [3] negative numbers, [4] rational numbers such as one half (), real numbers such as the square root of 2 and π, [5] and complex numbers [6] which extend the real numbers with a square root of −1 (and its combinations with real numbers by adding or ...
Leopold Kronecker was born on 7 December 1823 in Liegnitz, Prussia (now Legnica, Poland) in a wealthy Jewish family. His parents, Isidor and Johanna (née Prausnitzep), took care of their children's education and provided them with private tutoring at home—Leopold's younger brother Hugo Kronecker would also follow a scientific path, later becoming a notable physiologist.
895 — Thabit ibn Qurra gives a theorem by which pairs of amicable numbers can be found, (i.e., two numbers such that each is the sum of the proper divisors of the other). 975 — The earliest triangle of binomial coefficients (Pascal triangle) occur in the 10th century in commentaries on the Chandas Shastra.