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pre history | antiquity | pre industrial era | industrial era

0000 - 496 - 1310

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The Universal computer boots up with a Big Bang, everything that was has now become or will be. ;=)

300,000BC

In the beginning, mankind may not have had any idea of numerical units.
Possessions had to be portable, since they had to be carried around. Everything that could not be carried, was left behind. People had to be quick in movement and reaction; being slow meant instant death.
Animals were not the stuffy types we keep in zoos nowadays. They were bigger, fast as lightning and regarded a human just as another piece of juicy meat. And there were no gates or anything to keep them back. There for humans tended not to have to carry too much around for their own safety.
One could safely say that the need to count or calculate was not present since since possessions were scarce and little.

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on this stamp an Egyptian is shown counting with his fingers

But when having gathered something, they surely could tell you that there were less or more objects of, let's say, apples when apples were added or taken away.
Could one presume that they were visualizing the form (pile of apples) and estimated the size to have an idea of quantities? Was their way to tell something was missing or added through observing that the form of the pile had changed? When the pile of apples had become bigger, some apples were added. The bigger the image they had in memory the more they had. Or at least this seems to be a logical explanation of humans interfacing with their environment.

As time progressed, people migrated from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle into a domestic lifestyle. Occupied pieces of land and started farming. Hunting still took place but out from a permanent camp site.

The number of humans grew and they specialized in professions: shoemakers, farmers, black smiths... In time wealth and other things started to accumulate and volumes became larger.

Methods of visualizing quantities are of course very subjective, the need for better means of telling quantities and at the same time keeping track of them, increased. And as always the means were invented or improved upon when needed.

50,000BC to 20,000 BC

The first tools used for calculation aids were almost certainly man's own fingers, and it is no coincidence that the word "digit" is used to refer to a finger (or toe) as well as a numerical quantity.

As the needed to represent larger numbers grows, early man employed readily available materials for the purpose. Small stones or pebbles were used to represent larger numbers than fingers and toes, that had the added advantage of easily storing intermediate results for later use. Thus, it is no coincidence that the word "calculate" was derived from the Latin word for pebble: calculus.

Carving Notches Into Bones app. 30.000BC (12)

bones carved app 25.000 (pictures taken by THOCF 2003 at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany) the carving areas are digitally enhanced

The oldest known objects used to represent numbers were bones with notches carved into them, see picture above. These bones, which were discovered in western Europe, date from the Aurignacian period 20,000 to 30,000 years ago and correspond to the first appearance of Cro-Magnon man. (Named "Cro-Magnon" after the caves of the same name in Southern France, in which the first skeletons of this race was found in 1868.). Of special interest is a wolf's jawbone more than 20,000 years old with fifty-five notches in groups of five, which was discovered in Czechoslovakia in 1937. This is the first evidence of the tally system, which is still used occasionally to the present day and could therefore qualify as one of the most enduring of human inventions.

8500BC

Also of interest was a piece of bone dating from around 8,500 BC, discovered in Africa, that appeared to have notches representing the prime numbers 11, 13, 17, and 19.
Prime numbers are those numbers that are only wholly divisible by the number one and themselves, so it is not surprising that early man would have attributed them with a special significance. Surprising was that someone of that era had the mathematical sophistication to recognize this quite advanced concept and took the trouble to write it down -- not the least because prime numbers had little relevance to everyday problems of gathering food and staying alive.

Many artifacts are found that support the idea that mankind used very different means to keep track of numerical data, amounts, numbers and possessions. These artifacts are sometimes tens of thousands of years old.

		tally bones					abacus
quipa				cuneiform app 1200bc
			abax
									Napier bones
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So far for the artifacts. Yes, they were helpful. But as the quality of life improved, in different parts of the world people started to question themselves and wondered if there was more behind the clouds. And the need for knowledge grew. Scientists of all breeds and colors stepped forward and came with many new findings, inventions and facts of life.

6000 BC

In the Indian Vedah compiled at least before 6000 BC a verse (Richa) mentions the numerals of 12 (dwawash), 2 (treemi), and 300 (trishat).

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That was one of the earliest recordings of a decimal numeral system. The use of the zero also proved that a 10 based positional numeric system was in use at that time.

It is open to speculation how long before this date the decimal system, inclusive the zero, was invented.
And, it still leaves us with the question: "who or what people invented the zero?".

5500 BC

picture courtesy mathworld.wolfram.com

Mathematics in Egypt is based on the fractional system. A fine illustration of this is found in the eye of Horus. An egyptian deity of this time. The fractional units were used to represent the fractions of hekat (appr. 4.8 litres), the unit measure of capacity for grains. (17)(18) see http://www.greatscott.com/hiero/eye.html for a great explanation on this form of mathematics.
See also below at 1850 BC for a riddle in this type of calculus

5000 BC

The Abax (latin), or Abaq (Sumeric), giving the general idea of an Algorithmic Unit ⁽¹⁾(ALU) of a computer, is coming in use in the far east. Abaq or Abax stands for dust. Thus using the Abax or Abaq meant writing in dust.

The Abax serves as a means to calculate, it is a flat stone or wooden tabletop in which are carved straight lines. Calculations are done using little pebbles, and it is assumed that the various pebbles represent different values. In much later times (approximately 800 AD), the Abax showed up in Europe.

3200 BC

The first human to actually record numbers in a storage medium may have been a Sumerian accountant somewhere in the lower Mesopotamian river valley about 3200 BC using the sexagesimal numbering system based on the numbers 6 and 10. The discovery of arithmetic brought the Sumerians tangible benefits including the ability to numerically model the products of their economy, and their commerce grew making Mesopotamia the creator of Western civilization.(3)

Positional number system used in Mesopotamia.(5)

3000 BC

Early form of beads on wires, used in China(13)

The Abacus is described for the first time in Babylon. An improved version is coming into use around 1300 BC and is still in use now on the Balkan and Asia.
Just to show how well the abacus is keeping up: in app. 1950 AD, a contest between man and machine took place and a well trained human still beat the fastest electronic computer of that day by doing arithmetic on his Abacus.

2500 BC

The Egyptians came up with the idea of a thinking machine. Citizens went to the "Oracles": statues in which priests were hidden who communicated via orifices with the people putting questions to the oracles. This idea was copied in the 18th century when a smart designer hid a chess player in a so-called "automatic chess playing machine".

do you want to konw ?

2400 BC

Babylonians used the abacus and approximated pi as 3 1/8.

2000 BC

ca. 2000 BCE - Chinese writing system is invented. It was codified around 1500 BCE(16)

+/-1900 BC

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Stonehenge is still a mystery today. Was it a calendar or "just" a place for spiritual events? Do you want to know more? www.pbs.org

1850 BC

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In the Rhind(8) Papyrus written by, or copied as he states himself, the Egyptian scribe Ahmes stated that pi = 256/81 app. 3.160…(5) The scroll was purchased in Egypt by the Egyptologist Rhind in 1858 and is now in the British museum of Art.

This scroll contained more than a definition of PI. The Ahmes papyrus contained a set of 84 mathematical problems and their solutions. Although no hint is given how these solutions were arrived at, it gave us an insight into the mathematical knowledge of the early Egyptians.(9)

The Rhind papyrus showed that early Egyptian mathematics was largely based on puzzle type problems. For example the papyrus contained the following puzzle.

Seven houses contain seven cats. Each cat kills seven mice. Each mouse had eaten seven ears of grain. Each ear of grain would have produced seven hekats of wheat. What is the total of all of these?(7)

with the information above at 5500BC you should be able to calculate this

1800 BC

A well developed additive number system is now in use in Egypt(5)

1438 BC

Water clocks were built in China (1086 by Su Sung, a working model can be seen in action in Manor Museum UK), Korea (architect: Chang Yeong Shil, 1438, can still be seen at Kyeong Bok Gung.), Egypt (1500 BC) and in Syria (700 BC). Greece (ca. 5th century BC )
Some examples are shown below.

Replica of water clock by Su Sung ca. 1086 (courtesy Manor House)

Chinese water clock by Su Sung   www.ph.ed.ac.uk

Clepsydra. A unique example of the terra-cotta water clocks used for counting time of speeches in the public law courts. Dated to the 5th century BC

 

Time and tracking time was something that intrigued people and would inspire many inventors throughout the centuries into creating all kinds of clocks. In the 17th century a water driven clock, the first with hands and all, was constructed.
And in 1989 a modern water clock was created by French physicist and artist Bernard Gitton and placed in the children's museum(14). Water clocks are now mainly used for exploratoria in museums and other than time keeping purposes.
It was the clock technology would be used to make calculators of many different shapes. These kind of calculators were made until far into the 20th century.

1350

The Chinese use of a precision of one decimal is registered. In that the Chinese were calculating beyond the precision of whole numbers and started to divide the numbers in parts e.g. fractions.(15)

800 BC

I-Chin exhibits binary properties.(5)

600 BC

In this century Pythagoras rediscovered the theorem: the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle equals the square of the hypotenuse.

The so-called Pythagorean triples were already known in Babylonian times(2)

Abacus used in Greece(5)

550 BC

Pythagoras is credited for a theorem known to the Chinese a thousand years earlier. When his student Hippasus rediscovered irrational numbers, Pythagoras, believing the universe to be strictly rational, acts contrarily and has the student drowned for heresy.(5)(6)

409 BC

Diophante introduced the equal sign and was the first to use a form of symbolic language of algebra.

Last Updated on August 10, 2004

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