This document provides a brief history of mathematics and numbers. It discusses some early milestones in the use of numbers, such as bones used by Paleolithic peoples to record numbers around 50000-8000 BCE and the first symbols used in ancient Egypt. It also explains the differences between numbers and numerals, and how the Hindu-Arabic numeral system became dominant worldwide due to its introduction to Europe via the Arabic people in the Middle East. Examples are given of various ancient and modern numerical symbol sets from cultures like Egypt, Babylon, Rome, India, Arabic, and Asia.

1. A Brief History of
Mathematics Department
ura ittaya arn School
Addition Mathematics (Ma2120…) Mathayam 1 (IEP)

2. Milestone
-50000 -8000 -3400 -876 -230 -100
Paleolithic
peoples in central
Europe and
France record
numbers on
bones.
The first
symbols for
numbers are
used in Egypt.
Eratosthenes
develops his
sieve method for
finding all prime
numbers.

3. How many squares below?
Number and Numeral
We use word ‘four’ and use notation ‘4’ to
represent them.
In Thai, we use word ‘สอง’ and use notation ‘๔’ to
represent them.

4. Difference?
What is the difference between
‘number’ and ‘numeral’?

5. Nowadays
1 25
392
45
2,586
48,959
Hundu-Arabic numeralWhat do we call?

6. Various symbol sets
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Latin script
० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९ Devanagari
٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ Arabic
០ ១ ២៣៤ ៥ ៦ ៧ ៨ ៩ Khmer
๐ ๑ ๒ ๓ ๔ ๕ ๖ ๗ ๘ ๙ Thai
໐ ໑ ໒ ໓ ໔ ໕ ໖ ໗ ໘ ໙ Lao

7. Because…
1 39
459
48,959
0
It was formed by
Hindu or, now,
Indian.
It was presented in Europe by
Arabic, people in middle east
Asia.
2,586
25

8. Ancient Egyptian Numerals

9. Babylonian Numerals

10. Roman Numeral