Who Invented Math? – Explore the Origins of Mathematics with Detailed Insights

Who Invented Math?

1. A) Pythagoras
2. B) Isaac Newton
3. C) Euclid
4. D) No single person can be credited with inventing math

Correct answer: D) No single person can be credited with inventing math

Who Invented Math

The word “mathematics” comes from the Greek word “mathema,” which means “knowledge” or “learning.” Mathematics has developed over time with the help of many people from different parts of the world. It was not invented by just one person. Instead, different mathematicians contributed different ideas and discoveries that helped shape the subject.

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The ancient Greeks played a big role in the growth of mathematics, and many of the early concepts came from their work. Among them, Archimedes is often called the “Father of Mathematics” because of his great contributions to the subject. So, mathematics is not the work of one inventor, but a combined effort of many thinkers from different cultures over thousands of years.

It was the Greek mathematicians who initially imparted their mathematical discoveries to the world, giving birth to the term "mathematics" – a word that conveys "knowledge" and is drawn from the Greek "mathema." The study of mathematics involves a logical interplay of reason, quantity, arrangement, and form. It was discovered by a group of mathematicians, working from different points on the globe, as opposed to a single inventor. But it's important to ask: when did it all start? The multiple areas of mathematics we explore today, including algebra, geometry, and calculus, only represent the starting point.

Was mathematics discovered or created?

When was mathematics discovered as compared to "When was it invented?" Might it be that idea such as the laws of physics, which have always been out there, were merely identified and understood rather than being designed? There is a common notion that mathematics had been present long before we chanced upon it and began using it. Many suggest that it was early societies such as those in Greece, India, China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia who initially made use of mathematical concepts. Therefore, it's plausible to assert that mathematics wasn't invented but rather discovered, much like other scientific fields.

Insights from Mathematical History

There are various mathematical truths and proofs that held true even before their formal discovery by mathematicians. The Sumerians hold the credit for devising the first counting system. 

It is widely accepted among scientists that fundamental mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division have been in use for over 4,000 years. Clay tablets containing such wisdom were textbooks at that time. Records of mathematical advances, dating 4,000 years back, are available on Egyptian papyrus, an ancient record.

The southwestern American Mayans used mathematics to further augment their astronomical knowledge, resulting in the development of complex calendars. Similarly, the Central American Mayans applied mathematics to further their understanding. The ancient Greeks were leaders in arithmetic and geometry and offered the earliest explanations for natural phenomena, contributing substantially to the progress of applied mathematics.

With the Greeks initiating explanations for natural phenomena and setting the groundwork in arithmetic and geometry, there was a notable acceleration in the discoveries in applied mathematics. Geometry, in particular, has enabled the construction of structures, vehicles, and cities.

History of who discovered maths

The first people to use mathematics for counting were in antiquity! We use mathematics to count many times a day. Similar to how people today use mathematics without even realizing it, people in ancient times used mathematics unconsciously to count, add, subtract, and divide.

Table of Numerals

European (descended from the West Arabic)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Arabic-Indic	Ù	Ù¡	Ù¢	Ù£	Ù¤	Ù¥	Ù¦	Ù§	Ù¨	Ù©
Eastern Arabic-Indic (Persian and Urdu)	Û°	Û±	Û²	Û³	Û´	Ûµ	Û¶	Û·	Û¸	Û¹
Devanagari (Hindi)	०	१	२	३	४	५	६	७	८	९
Chinese	〇	一	二	三	四	五	六	七	八	九
Tamil	௧	௨	௩	௪	௫	௬	௭	௮	௯

The Origins of Mathematics

Math was not invented by just one person. Instead, it slowly developed over time in different parts of the world. People in ancient times needed math to do daily things like counting animals, measuring land, or keeping track of time. This is how math began.

How Ancient Civilizations Helped Create Math

Mesopotamia (Now Iraq):
Around 3000 BCE, people in Mesopotamia were among the first to use math. They created a number system based on the number 60. We still use this system today to count minutes and seconds. They also worked on early forms of addition, subtraction, and shapes (geometry).

Ancient Egypt:
The Egyptians used math to build the pyramids and to divide land. They had their own number symbols and were good at measuring and drawing shapes.

Ancient India:
India made very important contributions to math. Great Indian thinkers like Aryabhata and Bhaskara discovered the number zero and created the decimal number system. This helped make math much easier.

Ancient Greece:
Greek mathematicians like Pythagoras and Euclid are well known for their work in geometry. They studied shapes and sizes and found many rules that we still learn in school today, like the Pythagorean Theorem and the value of pi (π).

Ancient China:
Chinese mathematicians were also great at solving math problems. They used negative numbers and made clever methods to solve hard math questions. One famous idea is the Chinese Remainder Theorem.

Who invented Maths subject during the Scientific Revolution

Below is the detailed information about revolution in math over the centuries-

17th century

Europe experienced an unheard-of increase in mathematical and scientific ideas during the 17th century. Using a telescope modeled after a toy imported from Holland, Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter orbiting that planet. The positions of the planets in the sky were described mathematically in great detail by Tycho Brahe. Johannes Kepler was first exposed to and actively engaged with the subject of planetary motion through his role as Brahe's assistant. The contemporaneous development of logarithms by John Napier and Jost Bürgi facilitated Kepler's calculations. Kepler was successful in identifying the mathematical rules governing planetary motion. René Descartes' (1596-1650) analytical geometry made it possible to plot those orbits in cartesian coordinates on a graph.

18th century

Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), who lived in the 18th century, was probably the most important mathematician of the time. His contributions include standardizing many contemporary mathematical terms and notations as well as founding the field of graph theory with the Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem. He popularized the use of the Greek letter to stand for the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, for instance, and gave the square root of minus 1 the symbol i. Numerous theorems and notations bearing his name attest to his numerous contributions to the fields of topology, graph theory, calculus, combinatorics, and complex analysis.

19th century

The 19th century saw a rise in the abstraction of mathematics. This pattern is best exemplified by Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855). Leaving aside his numerous contributions to science, he performed ground-breaking research on the convergence of series, geometry, and functions of complex variables. Additionally, he provided the first successful justifications for the quadratic reciprocity law and the algebraic fundamental theorem.

The parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry is no longer valid in the two non-Euclidean forms of geometry that have developed this century. In hyperbolic geometry, where uniqueness of parallels no longer holds, the Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky and his rival, the Hungarian mathematician János Bolyai, independently defined and studied the subject. In this geometry, the total of a triangle's angles is not greater than 180°. The German mathematician Bernhard Riemann created elliptic geometry, where there is no parallel and a triangle's angles add up to more than 180 degrees. A manifold is a concept that generalizes the concepts of curves and surfaces. Riemann also created Riemannian geometry, which unifies and greatly expands the three types of geometry.

20th century

In the 20th century, mathematics emerged as a significant profession. Numerous positions in teaching and business were open, and there were thousands of new math Ph.D.s awarded each year. In Klein's encyclopedia, there was an attempt to list the branches and uses of mathematics. David Hilbert listed 23 unsolved mathematical puzzles in a 1900 speech to the International Congress of Mathematicians. These issues, which cut across many branches of mathematics, served as the main focus of 20th-century mathematics. Currently, 10 have been resolved, 7 have been partially resolved, and 2 remain unresolved. The remaining 4 are too ill-defined to be classified as either solved or unsolved. 

Important historical hypotheses were ultimately proven. It was controversial at the time because Wolfgang Haken and Kenneth Appel used a computer to demonstrate the four color theorem in 1976. In 1995, Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem by building on prior research. The continuum hypothesis was shown to be independent of (could not be both proved and disproved from) the fundamental axioms of set theory by Paul Cohen and Kurt Gödel. Thomas Callister Hales established the Kepler hypothesis in 1998.

21st century

The seven Millennium Prize Problems were revealed by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000, and Grigori Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture in 2003 (though he declined to accept an award because he was critical of the mathematics establishment). The majority of mathematical journals now have both print and online editions, and numerous online-only journals are being launched. Open access publishing is becoming more popular, thanks in large part to arXiv.

Mathematicians of Modern Days

There is no denying that one of the most important academic disciplines has always been mathematics. Further research is being conducted with the aid of the revelations of the classical mathematicians. Terence Tao, a former child prodigy who falls under the category of individuals with the highest I.Q., is one of the best mathematicians working today. The list of the top mathematicians in the world today also includes Keith Devlin and Andrew Sarnak.

Archimedes is regarded as the founding figure of mathematics. But the question of who created mathematics has no clear answer. In many centuries and by many people, it was discovered. We think it's more accurate to say that humanity discovered mathematics and that mathematics belongs to the entire planet.

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