ORIGIN OF NUMBER SYSTEM The digits 1 to 9 in the Hindu-Arabic numeral system evolved from the Brahmi numerals.

Buddhist inscriptions from around 300 BCE use the symbols which became 1, 4 and 6. One century later, their use of the symbols which became 2, 7 and 9 was recorded. The first universally accepted inscription containing the use of the 0 glyph is first recorded in the 9th century, in an inscription at Gwalior in Central India dated to 870. By this time, the use of the glyph had already reached Persia, and was mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's descriptions of Indian numerals. Numerous Indian documents on copper plates exist, with the same symbol for zero in them, dated back as far as the 6th century CE.[3] Some folk etymologies argue that the original forms of these symbols indicated their value through the number of angles they contained,[7] however there is no proof of any such origin.

REAL NUMBERS DEFINITION In mathematics, a real number is a value that represents a quantity along a continuum, such as -5 (an integer), 4/3 (a rational number that is not an integer), 8.6 (a rational number given by a finite decimal representation), 2 (the square root of two, an irrational number) and (3.1415926535..., a transcendental number). Mathematicians use the symbol R to represent real numbers.

Real numbers can be thought of as points on an infinitely long line called the number line or real line, where the points corresponding to integers are equally spaced. Any real number can be determined by a possibly infinite decimal representation (such as that of above), where the consecutive digits indicate into which tenth of an interval given by the previous digits the real number belongs to. The real line can be thought of as a part of the complex plane, and correspondingly, complex numbers include real numbers as a special case. HISTORY The Middle Ages saw the acceptance of zero, negative, integral and fractional numbers, first by Indian and Chinese mathematicians, and then by Arabic mathematicians, who were also the first to treat irrational numbers as algebraic objects,[5][unreliable source?] which was made possible by the development of algebra. Arabic mathematicians merged the concepts of "number" and "magnitude" into a more general idea of real numbers.[6] The Egyptian mathematician Ab Kmil Shuj ibn Aslam (c. 850930) was the first to accept irrational numbers as solutions to quadratic

equations or as coefficients in an equation, often in the form of square roots, cube roots and fourth roots.[7][verification needed] The development of calculus in the 18th century used the entire set of real numbers without having defined them cleanly. The first rigorous definition was given by Georg Cantor in 1871. In 1874 he showed that the set of all real numbers is uncountably infinite but the set of all algebraic numbers is countably infinite. PROPERTIES Real numbers have the two basic properties of being an ordered field, and having the least upper bound property. The first says that real numbers comprise a field, with addition and multiplication as well as division by nonzero numbers, which can be totally ordered on a number line in a way compatible with addition and multiplication. The second says that if a nonempty set of real numbers has an upper bound, then it has a least upper bound. RATIONAL NUMBER DEFINITION In mathematics, a rational number is any number that can be expressed as the quotient or fraction a/b of two integers, with the denominator b not equal to zero. Since b may be equal to 1, every integer is a rational number. The set of all rational numbers is usually denoted by a boldface Q.. PROPERTIES The decimal expansion of a rational number always either terminates after finitely many digits or begins to repeat the same finite sequence of digits over and over. Moreover, any repeating or terminating decimal represents a rational number. These statements hold true not just for base 10, but also for binary, hexadecimal, or any other integer base. In mathematical analysis, the rational numbers form a dense subset of the real numbers. The real numbers can be constructed from the rational numbers by completion, using either Cauchy sequences, Dedekind cuts, or infinite decimals.The set of all rational numbers is countable. Integers are rational numbers because they can be written as fraction with 1 as the denominator IRRATIONAL NUMBERS DEFINITION In mathematics, an irrational number is any real number which cannot be expressed as a fraction a/b, where a and b are integers, with b non-zero, and is therefore not a rational number. Informally, this means that an irrational number cannot be represented as a simple fraction. PROPERTIES Irrational numbers are precisely those real numbers that cannot be represented as terminating or repeating decimals. As a consequence of Cantor's proof that the real numbers are uncountable (and the rationals countable) it follows that almost all real numbers are irrational.[1] Perhaps the best-known irrational numbers are , e and 2

The square roots of all numbers which are not perfect squares are irrational

The irrationality of the square root of 2 may be proved by assuming it is rational and inferring a contradiction, called an argument by reductio ad absurdum. The following argument appeals twice to the fact that the square of an odd integer is always odd.