WHO WERE THE EARLY MATHEMATICIANS?

Yes! You heard it right. It's not about the modern-day mathematicians like Alan Turing or Srinivasa Ramanujan. Imagine doing a complex mathematical calculation in real-time without your mobile phone, a computer, or a calculator. I know it's tough, as we all live in the 21st century, where calculations are part of our daily life, but we do that with ease with human-made machines, programs, or algorithms that do it for us.

Think about when all these were not in the hands of the humans.

Where can it all be started, possibly?

With a flourishing agricultural economy, ancient Babylon, located in modern-day Iraq, was one of the first societies complex enough to need modern record-keeping. The ancient Babylonians were, therefore, one of the first to develop the sophisticated counting system.

They developed positional numbering.

"Positional numbering is a system where not only a symbol but also its position relative to other symbols expresses the value."

The Babylonian sexagesimal, or base 60, grouped members by sets of 60-60²,60³, and so on, just as modern counting uses the symbol I for sets of 10:10²(100), 10³ (1,000). Clay tablets have come down through history that illustrates the Babylonian's advanced understanding of numbers. The tablet known as Plimpton 322 shows a sequence of numbers that appear to express the equation "x²+y²=z²." Babylonians had a version of what would later be called the Pythagorean theorem.

Base Number:

An arbitrarily chosen whole number greater than 1 in terms of which any number can be as a sum of that base raised to various powers. Systems through history have used different numbers as their group unit or base, but over time, the decimal system- a base 10 system that overshadowed others.

Some of the Early Mathematicians.

Mathematics may be a boring subject to study and read about, but the technological world that is so advanced today has its mathematical roots.

We know math is the root node for computers, quantum mechanics, and GPS satellites. Generations of brilliant minds are listed below.

The Greeks
The Romans
Chinese
Indian
Islamic Empires
Maya
Medieval European
Renaissance

Pythagoras is the name we all are familiar with, but is it all true about what we hear about him?

No, but if not Pythagoras, it's Pythagoreans for sure.

Pythagoras believed everything could be reduced to numbers. The Pythagoreans were the ones that took mathematics to the next level. The number ten was the supreme number, according to Pythagoreans. Pythagoras also believed that music and numbers are linked to each other.

Random Facts:

8000 BC Tally marks used in Congo

7500 BC Sumerians track grains, animals, and valuables with clay tokens.

3400 BC Egyptians used marks up to nine and a special symbol for ten.

CIRCA 3100 BC Symbols on Clay tablets of Sumerian used a wedge for one, a circle for ten.

300BC Hindu- Arabic numerals in India include zero as a placeholder.

50 BC Base-10 system with numerals akin to ours used in India

Some believe that Pythagoras is the God of creation and Mathematics.