A number is a mathematical object used in counting and measuring.

A notational symbol which represents a number is called a numeral, but in common usage the word number is used for both the abstract object and the symbol, as well as for the word for the number. In addition to their use in counting and measuring, numerals are often used for labels (telephone numbers), for ordering (serial numbers), and for codes (e.g., ISBNs). In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers. Certain procedures which take one or more numbers as input and produce a number as output are called numerical operations. Unary operations take a single input number and produce a single output number. For example, the successor operation adds one to an integer, thus the successor of 4 is 5. More common are binary operations which take two input numbers and produce a single output number. Examples of binary operations include addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and exponentiation. The study of numerical operations is called arithmetic.

Classification of numbers
See also: List of types of numbers Different types of numbers are used in different cases. Numbers can be classified into sets, called number systems. (For different methods of expressing numbers with symbols, such as the Roman numerals, see numeral systems.) Number systems (0), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ..., n n, ..., 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., n 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., n b where a and b are integers and b is not zero The limit of a convergent sequence of rational numbers a + bi where a and b are real numbers and i is the square root of 1
a

Natural Integers Positive integers Rational Real Complex

[edit] Natural numbers

Main article: Natural number The most familiar numbers are the natural numbers or counting numbers: one, two, three, and so on. Traditionally, the sequence of natural numbers started with 1 (0 was not even considered a number for the Ancient Greeks.) However, in the 19th century, set theorists and other mathematicians started the convention of including 0 (cardinality of the empty set, i.e. 0

elements, where 0 is thus the smallest cardinal number) in the set of natural numbers. The mathematical symbol for the set of all natural numbers is N, also written . In the base ten numeral system, in almost universal use today by humans for arithmetic operations, the symbols for natural numbers are written using ten digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. In this base ten system, the rightmost digit of a natural number has a place value of one, and every other digit has a place value ten times that of the place value of the digit to its right. In set theory, which is capable of acting as an axiomatic foundation for modern mathematics[1], natural numbers can be represented by classes of equivalent sets. For instance, the number 3 can be represented as the class of all sets that have exactly three elements. Alternatively, in Peano Arithmetic, the number 3 is represented as sss0, where s is the "successor" function (i.e., 3 is the third successor of 0). Many different representations are possible; all that is needed to formally represent 3 is to inscribe a certain symbol or pattern of symbols three times.

[edit] Integers
Main article: Integer The negative of a natural number is defined as a number that produces zero when it is added to the number. Negative numbers are said to be less than zero and are usually written with a negative sign (also called a minus sign). As an example, the negative of 7 is written 7, and 7 + (7) = 0. When the set of the negatives of the natural numbers is combined with the natural numbers, the result is defined as the set of integer numbers, also called integers, Z also written . Here the letter Z comes from German Zahl, meaning "number". The set of integers forms a ring with operations addition and multiplication.[2]

[edit] Rational numbers

Main article: Rational number A rational number is a number that can be expressed as a fraction with an integer numerator and a non-zero natural number denominator. Fractions are written as two numbers, the numerator and the denominator, with a dividing bar between them. In the fraction written mn or

m represents equal parts, where n equal parts of that size make up one whole. Two different fractions may correspond to the same rational number; for example 12 and 24 are equal, that is:

If the absolute value of m is greater than n, then the absolute value of the fraction is greater than 1. Fractions can be greater than, less than, or equal to 1 and can also be positive, negative, or

zero. The set of all rational numbers includes the integers, since every integer can be written as a fraction with denominator 1. For example 7 can be written 71. The symbol for the rational numbers is Q (for quotient), also written .

[edit] Real numbers

Main article: Real number The real numbers include all of the measuring numbers. Real numbers are usually written using decimal numerals, in which a decimal point is placed to the right of the digit with place value one. Each digit to the right of the decimal point has a place value one-tenth of the place value of the digit to its left. Thus

represents 1 hundred, 2 tens, 3 ones, 4 tenths, 5 hundredths, and 6 thousandths. In saying the number, the decimal is read "point", thus: "one two three point four five six ". In the US and UK and a number of other countries, the decimal point is represented by a period, whereas in continental Europe and certain other countries the decimal point is represented by a comma. Zero is often written as 0.0 when necessary to indicate that it is to be treated as a real number rather than as an integer; in the US and UK a number between 1 and 1 is always written with a leading zero so that the decimal point is more apparent, in other countries it may not be. Negative real numbers are written with a preceding minus sign:

Every rational number is also a real number. It is not the case, however, that every real number is rational. If a real number cannot be written as a fraction of two integers, it is called irrational. A decimal that can be written as a fraction either ends (terminates) or forever repeats, because it is the answer to a problem in division. Thus the real number 0.5 can be written as 12 and the real number 0.333... (forever repeating threes, otherwise written 0.3) can be written as 13. On the other hand, the real number (pi), the ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter, is

Since the decimal neither ends nor forever repeats, it cannot be written as a fraction, and is an example of an irrational number. Other irrational numbers include

(the square root of 2, that is, the positive number whose square is 2). Thus 1.0 and 0.999... are two different decimal numerals representing the natural number 1. There are infinitely many other ways of representing the number 1, for example 22, 33, 1.00, 1.000, and so on.

Every real number is either rational or irrational. Every real number corresponds to a point on the number line. The real numbers also have an important but highly technical property called the least upper bound property. The symbol for the real numbers is R or . When a real number represents a measurement, there is always a margin of error. This is often indicated by rounding or truncating a decimal, so that digits that suggest a greater accuracy than the measurement itself are removed. The remaining digits are called significant digits. For example, measurements with a ruler can seldom be made without a margin of error of at least 0.01 meters. If the sides of a rectangle are measured as 1.23 meters and 4.56 meters, then multiplication gives an area for the rectangle of 5.6088 square meters. Since only the first two digits after the decimal place are significant, this is usually rounded to 5.61. In abstract algebra, it can be shown that any complete ordered field is isomorphic to the real numbers. The real numbers are not, however, an algebraically closed field.

[edit] Complex numbers

Main article: Complex number Moving to a greater level of abstraction, the real numbers can be extended to the complex numbers. This set of numbers arose, historically, from trying to find closed formulas for the roots of cubic and quartic polynomials. This led to expressions involving the square roots of negative numbers, and eventually to the definition of a new number: the square root of negative one, denoted by i, a symbol assigned by Leonhard Euler, and called the imaginary unit. The complex numbers consist of all numbers of the form

where a and b are real numbers. In the expression a + bi, the real number a is called the real part and bi is called the imaginary part. If the real part of a complex number is zero, then the number is called an imaginary number or is referred to as purely imaginary; if the imaginary part is zero, then the number is a real number. Thus the real numbers are a subset of the complex numbers. If the real and imaginary parts of a complex number are both integers, then the number is called a Gaussian integer. The symbol for the complex numbers is C or . In abstract algebra, the complex numbers are an example of an algebraically closed field, meaning that every polynomial with complex coefficients can be factored into linear factors. Like the real number system, the complex number system is a field and is complete, but unlike the real numbers it is not ordered. That is, there is no meaning in saying that i is greater than 1, nor is there any meaning in saying that i is less than 1. In technical terms, the complex numbers lack the trichotomy property. Complex numbers correspond to points on the complex plane, sometimes called the Argand plane.

Each of the number systems mentioned above is a proper subset of the next number system. Symbolically, .

[edit] Computable numbers

Main article: Computable number Moving to problems of computation, the computable numbers are determined in the set of the real numbers. The computable numbers, also known as the recursive numbers or the computable reals, are the real numbers that can be computed to within any desired precision by a finite, terminating algorithm. Equivalent definitions can be given using -recursive functions, Turing machines or -calculus as the formal representation of algorithms. The computable numbers form a real closed field and can be used in the place of real numbers for many, but not all, mathematical purposes.

[edit] Other types

Hyperreal and hypercomplex numbers are used in non-standard analysis. The hyperreals, or nonstandard reals (usually denoted as *R), denote an ordered field which is a proper extension of the ordered field of real numbers R and which satisfies the transfer principle. This principle allows true first order statements about R to be reinterpreted as true first order statements about *R. Superreal and surreal numbers extend the real numbers by adding infinitesimally small numbers and infinitely large numbers, but still form fields. The p-adic numbers may have infinitely long expansions to the left of the decimal point in the same way that real numbers may have infinitely long expansions to the right. The number system which results depends on what base is used for the digits: any base is possible, but a system with the best mathematical properties is obtained when the base is a prime number. For dealing with infinite collections, the natural numbers have been generalized to the ordinal numbers and to the cardinal numbers. The former gives the ordering of the collection, while the latter gives its size. For the finite set, the ordinal and cardinal numbers are equivalent, but they differ in the infinite case. A relation number is defined as the class of relations consisting of all those relations that are similar to one member of the class.[3] Sets of numbers that are not subsets of the complex numbers are sometimes called hypercomplex numbers. They include the quaternions H, invented by Sir William Rowan Hamilton, in which multiplication is not commutative, and the octonions, in which multiplication is not associative. Elements of function fields of non-zero characteristic behave in some ways like numbers and are often regarded as numbers by number theorists.

[edit] Specific uses

There are also other sets of numbers with specialized uses. Some are subsets of the complex numbers. For example, algebraic numbers are the roots of polynomials with rational coefficients. Complex numbers that are not algebraic are called transcendental numbers. An even number is an integer that is "evenly divisible" by 2, i.e., divisible by 2 without remainder; an odd number is an integer that is not evenly divisible by 2. (The old-fashioned term "evenly divisible" is now almost always shortened to "divisible".) A formal definition of an odd number is that it is an integer of the form n = 2k + 1, where k is an integer. An even number has the form n = 2k where k is an integer. A perfect number is defined as a positive integer which is the sum of its proper positive divisors, that is, the sum of the positive divisors not including the number itself. Equivalently, a perfect number is a number that is half the sum of all of its positive divisors, or (n) = 2 n. The first perfect number is 6, because 1, 2, and 3 are its proper positive divisors and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. The next perfect number is 28 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14. The next perfect numbers are 496 and 8128 (sequence A000396 in OEIS). These first four perfect numbers were the only ones known to early Greek mathematics. A figurate number is a number that can be represented as a regular and discrete geometric pattern (e.g. dots). If the pattern is polytopic, the figurate is labeled a polytopic number, and may be a polygonal number or a polyhedral number. Polytopic numbers for r = 2, 3, and 4 are:

P2(n) = 12 n(n + 1) (triangular numbers) P3(n) = 16 n(n + 1)(n + 2) (tetrahedral numbers) P4(n) = 124 n(n + 1)(n + 2)(n + 3) (pentatopic numbers)

[edit] Numerals
Numbers should be distinguished from numerals, the symbols used to represent numbers. Boyer showed that Egyptians created the first ciphered numeral system.[citation needed] Greeks followed by mapping their counting numbers onto Ionian and Doric alpabets. The number five can be represented by both the base ten numeral '5', by the Roman numeral '' and ciphered letters. Notations used to represent numbers are discussed in the article numeral systems. An important development in the history of numerals was the development of a positional system, like modern decimals, which can represent very large numbers. The Roman numerals require extra symbols for larger numbers.

[edit] History
[edit] The first use of numbers
It is speculated that the first known use of numbers dates back to around 35,000 BC. Bones and other artifacts have been discovered with marks cut into them which many consider to be tally

marks. The uses of these tally marks may have been for counting elapsed time, such as numbers of days, or keeping records of quantities, such as of animals. Tallying systems have no concept of place value (such as in the currently used decimal notation), which limit its representation of large numbers but are nonetheless considered the first kind of abstract numeral system. The first known system with place value was the Mesopotamian base 60 system (ca. 3400 BC) and the earliest known base 10 system dates to 3100 BC in Egypt.[4]

[edit] Zero
Further information: History of zero The use of zero as a number should be distinguished from its use as a placeholder numeral in place-value systems. Many ancient texts used zero. Babylonian and Egyptian texts used it. Egyptians used the word nfr to denote zero balance in double entry accounting entries. Indian texts used a Sanskrit word Shunya to refer to the concept of void; in mathematics texts this word would often be used to refer to the number zero.[5] Records show that the Ancient Greeks seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number: they asked themselves "how can 'nothing' be something?" leading to interesting philosophical and, by the Medieval period, religious arguments about the nature and existence of zero and the vacuum. The paradoxes of Zeno of Elea depend in large part on the uncertain interpretation of zero. (The ancient Greeks even questioned whether 1 was a number.) The late Olmec people of south-central Mexico began to use a true zero (a shell glyph) in the New World possibly by the 4th century BC but certainly by 40 BC, which became an integral part of Maya numerals and the Maya calendar. Mayan arithmetic used base 4 and base 5 written as base 20. Sanchez in 1961 reported a base 4, base 5 'finger' abacus. By 130 AD, Ptolemy, influenced by Hipparchus and the Babylonians, was using a symbol for zero (a small circle with a long overbar) within a sexagesimal numeral system otherwise using alphabetic Greek numerals. Because it was used alone, not as just a placeholder, this Hellenistic zero was the first documented use of a true zero in the Old World. In later Byzantine manuscripts of his Syntaxis Mathematica (Almagest), the Hellenistic zero had morphed into the Greek letter omicron (otherwise meaning 70). Another true zero was used in tables alongside Roman numerals by 525 (first known use by Dionysius Exiguus), but as a word, nulla meaning nothing, not as a symbol. When division produced zero as a remainder, nihil, also meaning nothing, was used. These medieval zeros were used by all future medieval computists (calculators of Easter). An isolated use of their initial, N, was used in a table of Roman numerals by Bede or a colleague about 725, a true zero symbol. An early documented use of the zero by Brahmagupta (in the Brahmasphutasiddhanta) dates to 628. He treated zero as a number and discussed operations involving it, including division. By

this time (the 7th century) the concept had clearly reached Cambodia as Khmer numerals, and documentation shows the idea later spreading to China and the Islamic world.

[edit] Negative numbers

Further information: History of negative numbers The abstract concept of negative numbers was recognised as early as 100 BC 50 BC. The Chinese Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art (Chinese: Jiu-zhang Suanshu) contains methods for finding the areas of figures; red rods were used to denote positive coefficients, black for negative.[6] This is the earliest known mention of negative numbers in the East; the first reference in a Western work was in the 3rd century in Greece. Diophantus referred to the equation equivalent to 4x + 20 = 0 (the solution would be negative) in Arithmetica, saying that the equation gave an absurd result. During the 600s, negative numbers were in use in India to represent debts. Diophantus previous reference was discussed more explicitly by Indian mathematician Brahmagupta, in BrahmaSphuta-Siddhanta 628, who used negative numbers to produce the general form quadratic formula that remains in use today. However, in the 12th century in India, Bhaskara gives negative roots for quadratic equations but says the negative value "is in this case not to be taken, for it is inadequate; people do not approve of negative roots." European mathematicians, for the most part, resisted the concept of negative numbers until the 17th century, although Fibonacci allowed negative solutions in financial problems where they could be interpreted as debts (chapter 13 of Liber Abaci, 1202) and later as losses (in Flos). At the same time, the Chinese were indicating negative numbers either by drawing a diagonal stroke through the right-most nonzero digit of the corresponding positive number's numeral.[7] The first use of negative numbers in a European work was by Chuquet during the 15th century. He used them as exponents, but referred to them as absurd numbers. As recently as the 18th century, it was common practice to ignore any negative results returned by equations on the assumption that they were meaningless, just as Ren Descartes did with negative solutions in a Cartesian coordinate system.

[edit] Rational numbers

It is likely that the concept of fractional numbers dates to prehistoric times. The Ancient Egyptians used their Egyptian fraction notation for rational numbers in mathematical texts such as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and the Kahun Papyrus. Classical Greek and Indian mathematicians made studies of the theory of rational numbers, as part of the general study of number theory. The best known of these is Euclid's Elements, dating to roughly 300 BC. Of the Indian texts, the most relevant is the Sthananga Sutra, which also covers number theory as part of a general study of mathematics. The concept of decimal fractions is closely linked with decimal place-value notation; the two seem to have developed in tandem. For example, it is common for the Jain math sutras to include

calculations of decimal-fraction approximations to pi or the square root of two. Similarly, Babylonian math texts had always used sexagesimal (base 60) fractions with great frequency.

Irrational numbers
Further information: History of irrational numbers The earliest known use of irrational numbers was in the Indian Sulba Sutras composed between 800500 BC.[8] The first existence proofs of irrational numbers is usually attributed to Pythagoras, more specifically to the Pythagorean Hippasus of Metapontum, who produced a (most likely geometrical) proof of the irrationality of the square root of 2. The story goes that Hippasus discovered irrational numbers when trying to represent the square root of 2 as a fraction. However Pythagoras believed in the absoluteness of numbers, and could not accept the existence of irrational numbers. He could not disprove their existence through logic, but his beliefs would not accept the existence of irrational numbers and so he sentenced Hippasus to death by drowning. The sixteenth century saw the final acceptance by Europeans of negative integral and fractional numbers. The seventeenth century saw decimal fractions with the modern notation quite generally used by mathematicians. But it was not until the nineteenth century that the irrationals were separated into algebraic and transcendental parts, and a scientific study of theory of irrationals was taken once more. It had remained almost dormant since Euclid. The year 1872 saw the publication of the theories of Karl Weierstrass (by his pupil Kossak), Heine (Crelle, 74), Georg Cantor (Annalen, 5), and Richard Dedekind. Mray had taken in 1869 the same point of departure as Heine, but the theory is generally referred to the year 1872. Weierstrass's method has been completely set forth by Salvatore Pincherle (1880), and Dedekind's has received additional prominence through the author's later work (1888) and the recent endorsement by Paul Tannery (1894). Weierstrass, Cantor, and Heine base their theories on infinite series, while Dedekind founds his on the idea of a cut (Schnitt) in the system of real numbers, separating all rational numbers into two groups having certain characteristic properties. The subject has received later contributions at the hands of Weierstrass, Kronecker (Crelle, 101), and Mray. Continued fractions, closely related to irrational numbers (and due to Cataldi, 1613), received attention at the hands of Euler, and at the opening of the nineteenth century were brought into prominence through the writings of Joseph Louis Lagrange. Other noteworthy contributions have been made by Druckenmller (1837), Kunze (1857), Lemke (1870), and Gnther (1872). Ramus (1855) first connected the subject with determinants, resulting, with the subsequent contributions of Heine, Mbius, and Gnther, in the theory of Kettenbruchdeterminanten. Dirichlet also added to the general theory, as have numerous contributors to the applications of the subject.

Transcendental numbers and reals

Further information:History of pi The first results concerning transcendental numbers were Lambert's 1761 proof that cannot be rational, and also that en is irrational if n is rational (unless n = 0). (The constant e was first

referred to in Napier's 1618 work on logarithms.) Legendre extended this proof to show that is not the square root of a rational number. The search for roots of quintic and higher degree equations was an important development, the AbelRuffini theorem (Ruffini 1799, Abel 1824) showed that they could not be solved by radicals (formula involving only arithmetical operations and roots). Hence it was necessary to consider the wider set of algebraic numbers (all solutions to polynomial equations). Galois (1832) linked polynomial equations to group theory giving rise to the field of Galois theory. Even the set of algebraic numbers was not sufficient and the full set of real number includes transcendental numbers,[9] the existence of which was first established by Liouville (1844, 1851). Hermite proved in 1873 that e is transcendental and Lindemann proved in 1882 that is transcendental. Finally Cantor shows that the set of all real numbers is uncountably infinite but the set of all algebraic numbers is countably infinite, so there is an uncountably infinite number of transcendental numbers.

[edit] Infinity and infinitesimals

Further information: History of infinity The earliest known conception of mathematical infinity appears in the Yajur Veda, an ancient Indian script, which at one point states "if you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, still what remains is infinity". Infinity was a popular topic of philosophical study among the Jain mathematicians circa 400 BC. They distinguished between five types of infinity: infinite in one and two directions, infinite in area, infinite everywhere, and infinite perpetually. In the West, the traditional notion of mathematical infinity was defined by Aristotle, who distinguished between actual infinity and potential infinity; the general consensus being that only the latter had true value. Galileo's Two New Sciences discussed the idea of one-to-one correspondences between infinite sets. But the next major advance in the theory was made by Georg Cantor; in 1895 he published a book about his new set theory, introducing, among other things, transfinite numbers and formulating the continuum hypothesis. This was the first mathematical model that represented infinity by numbers and gave rules for operating with these infinite numbers. In the 1960s, Abraham Robinson showed how infinitely large and infinitesimal numbers can be rigorously defined and used to develop the field of nonstandard analysis. The system of hyperreal numbers represents a rigorous method of treating the ideas about infinite and infinitesimal numbers that had been used casually by mathematicians, scientists, and engineers ever since the invention of infinitesimal calculus by Newton and Leibniz. A modern geometrical version of infinity is given by projective geometry, which introduces "ideal points at infinity," one for each spatial direction. Each family of parallel lines in a given direction is postulated to converge to the corresponding ideal point. This is closely related to the idea of vanishing points in perspective drawing.

[edit] Complex numbers

Further information: History of complex numbers The earliest fleeting reference to square roots of negative numbers occurred in the work of the mathematician and inventor Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD, when he considered the volume of an impossible frustum of a pyramid. They became more prominent when in the 16th century closed formulas for the roots of third and fourth degree polynomials were discovered by Italian mathematicians such as Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia and Gerolamo Cardano. It was soon realized that these formulas, even if one was only interested in real solutions, sometimes required the manipulation of square roots of negative numbers. This was doubly unsettling since they did not even consider negative numbers to be on firm ground at the time. The term "imaginary" for these quantities was coined by Ren Descartes in 1637 and was meant to be derogatory (see imaginary number for a discussion of the "reality" of complex numbers). A further source of confusion was that the equation

seemed to be capriciously inconsistent with the algebraic identity

which is valid for positive real numbers a and b, and which was also used in complex number calculations with one of a, b positive and the other negative. The incorrect use of this identity, and the related identity

in the case when both a and b are negative even bedeviled Euler. This difficulty eventually led him to the convention of using the special symbol i in place of mistake. to guard against this

The 18th century saw the work of Abraham de Moivre and Leonhard Euler. de Moivre's formula (1730) states:

and to Euler (1748) Euler's formula of complex analysis:

The existence of complex numbers was not completely accepted until the geometrical interpretation had been described by Caspar Wessel in 1799; it was rediscovered several years

later and popularized by Carl Friedrich Gauss, and as a result the theory of complex numbers received a notable expansion. The idea of the graphic representation of complex numbers had

Also in 1799, Gauss provided the first generally accepted proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra, showing that every polynomial over the complex numbers has a full set of solutions in that realm. The general acceptance of the theory of complex numbers is due to the labors of Augustin Louis Cauchy and Niels Henrik Abel, and especially the latter, who was the first to boldly use complex numbers with a success that is well known. Gauss studied complex numbers of the form a + bi, where a and b are integral, or rational (and i is one of the two roots of x2 + 1 = 0). His student, Ferdinand Eisenstein, studied the type a + b, where is a complex root of x3 1 = 0. Other such classes (called cyclotomic fields) of complex numbers are derived from the roots of unity xk 1 = 0 for higher values of k. This generalization is largely due to Ernst Kummer, who also invented ideal numbers, which were expressed as geometrical entities by Felix Klein in 1893. The general theory of fields was created by variste Galois, who studied the fields generated by the roots of any polynomial equation F(x) = 0. In 1850 Victor Alexandre Puiseux took the key step of distinguishing between poles and branch points, and introduced the concept of essential singular points; this would eventually lead to the concept of the extended complex plane.

[edit] Prime numbers

Prime numbers have been studied throughout recorded history. Euclid devoted one book of the Elements to the theory of primes; in it he proved the infinitude of the primes and the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, and presented the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers. In 240 BC, Eratosthenes used the Sieve of Eratosthenes to quickly isolate prime numbers. But most further development of the theory of primes in Europe dates to the Renaissance and later eras. In 1796, Adrien-Marie Legendre conjectured the prime number theorem, describing the asymptotic distribution of primes. Other results concerning the distribution of the primes include Euler's proof that the sum of the reciprocals of the primes diverges, and the Goldbach conjecture which claims that any sufficiently large even number is the sum of two primes. Yet another conjecture related to the distribution of prime numbers is the Riemann hypothesis, formulated by Bernhard Riemann in 1859. The prime number theorem was finally proved by Jacques Hadamard and Charles de la Valle-Poussin in 1896. The conjectures of Goldbach and Riemann yet remain to be proved
Most of the positional base 10 numeral systems in the world have originated from India, where the concept of positional numerology was first developed. The Indian numeral system is commonly referred

to in the West as the Hindu-Arabic numeral system or even Arabic numerals, since it reached Europe through the Arabs.

Indian numerals
Devanagari numerals and their Sanskrit names Below is a list of the Indian numerals in their modern Devanagari form, the corresponding European (Indo-Arabic) equivalents, and their Sanskrit pronunciation. Modern Sanskrit word for Hindu-Arabic Devanagari the ordinal numeral (wordstem) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 nya ( ka () dvi ( tri ( ) catr ( paca ( ( sapt ( a ( ) ) ) ) ) ) )

nva ( )

Since Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, it is obvious (as also seen from the table) that the words for numerals closely resemble those of Greek and Latin. The word "Shunya" for zero was translated into Arabic as "" " sifr", meaning 'nothing' which became the term "zero" in many European languages from Medieval Latin, zephirum (Arabic: sifr).[1] [edit] Other modern Indian languages

See also: Glyphs used with the Arabic numeral system The five Indian languages (Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Nepali and Sanskrit itself) that have adapted the Devanagari script to their use also naturally employ the numeral symbols above; of course, the names for the numbers vary by language. The table below presents a listing of the symbols used in various modern Indian scripts for the numbers from zero to nine: Arabic 0 numerals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Used in Bengali language Assames e language Gujarati language Punjabi language Kannada language Malayala m language Oriya language Tamil language Telugu language

Eastern Nagari numerals

Gujarati numerals Gurmukh i numerals Kannada numerals Malayala m numerals Oriya numerals Tamil numerals Telugu numerals Lepcha numerals

Sikkim and

Bhutan

Note: The symbol for zero in Tamil is modern innovation. Unicode 4.1 and later define encodings for them.[2][3] [edit] History Main article: History of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system A decimal place system has been traced back to ca. 500 in India. Before that epoch, the Brahmi numeral system was in use; that system did not encompass the concept of the place-value of numbers. Instead, Brahmi numerals included additional symbols for the tens, as well as separate symbols for hundred and thousand. The Indian place-system numerals spread to neighboring Persia, where they were picked up by the conquering Arabs. In 662, a Nestorian bishop living in what is now called Iraq said: I will omit all discussion of the science of the Indians ... of their subtle discoveries in astronomy discoveries that are more ingenious than those of the Greeks and the Babylonians - and of their valuable methods of calculation which surpass description. I wish only to say that this computation is done by means of nine signs. If those who believe that because they speak Greek they have arrived at the limits of science would read the Indian texts they would be convinced even if a little late in the day that there are others who know something of value. The addition of zero as a tenth positional digit is documented from the 7th century by Brahmagupta, though the earlier Bakhshali Manuscript, written sometime before the 5th century, also included zero. But it is in Khmer numerals of modern Cambodia is where the first extant material evidence of zero as a numerical figure, dating its use back to the seventh century, is found.[4] As it was from the Arabs that the Europeans learned this system, the Europeans called them Arabic numerals; ironically, to this day the Arabs refer to their numerals as Indian numerals. In academic circles they are called the Hindu-Arabic or Indo-Arabic numerals. The significance of the development of the positional number system is probably best described by the French mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace (17491827) who wrote: It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by the means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position, as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit, but its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest minds produced by antiquity. Tobias Dantzig, the father of George Dantzig had this to say in Number:

This long period of nearly five thousand years saw the rise and fall of many a civilization, each leaving behind it a heritage of literature, art, philosophy, and religion. But what was the net achievement in the field of reckoning, the earliest art practiced by man? An inflexible numeration so crude as to make progress well nigh impossible, and a calculating device so limited in scope that even elementary calculations called for the services of an expert [...] Man used these devices for thousands of years without contributing a single important idea to the system [...] Even when compared with the slow growth of ideas during the dark ages, the history of reckoning presents a peculiar picture of desolate stagnation. When viewed in this light, the achievements of the unknown Hindu, who some time in the first centuries of our era discovered the principle of position, assumes the importance of a world event.

Arabic numerals
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Arabic numerals (disambiguation).

Numerals sans-serif Numeral systems by culture Hindu-Arabic numerals Western Arabic Eastern Arabic Indian family Burmese Khmer Mongolian Thai

East Asian numerals Chinese Japanese Suzhou Korean Vietnamese Counting rods Alphabetic numerals

Abjad Armenian ryabhaa Cyrillic

Ge'ez Greek (Ionian) Hebrew

Other systems Aegean Attic Babylonian Brahmi Egyptian Etruscan Inuit Mayan Quipu Roman Sumerian Urnfield

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Positional systems by base Decimal (10) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, 30, 36, 60 more
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Arabic numerals or Hindu numerals[1][2] or Hindu-Arabic numerals[2][3] are the ten digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). They are descended from the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed by Indian mathematicians, in which a sequence of numerals such as "975" is read as a whole number. The Indian numerals were adopted by the Persian mathematicians in India, and passed on to the Arabs further west. They were transmitted to Europe in the Middle Ages. The use of Arabic numerals spread around the world through European trade, books and colonialism. Today they are the most common symbolic representation of numbers in the world. As befitting their history, the digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) are more appropriately known as Hindu or Hindu-Arabic numerals. The reason that they are more commonly known as "Arabic numerals" in Europe and the Americas is that they were introduced to Europe in the 10th century from Arabs of North Africa, who were then using the digits from Libya to Morocco. Europeans did not know about the numerals' origins in ancient India, so they named them "Arabic numerals".[4] Arabs, on the other hand, call the system "Hindu numerals",[5][6] referring to their origin in India. This is not to be confused with what the Arabs call the "Hindi numerals", namely

the Eastern Arabic numerals (.........) used in the Middle East, or any of the numerals currently used in Indian languages (e.g. Devanagari: .........).[7] In English, the term Arabic numerals can be ambiguous. It most commonly refers to the numeral system widely used in Europe and the Americas. Arabic numerals is the conventional name for the entire family of related systems of Arabic and Indian numerals. It may also be intended to mean the numerals used by Arabs, in which case it generally refers to the Eastern Arabic numerals. The decimal Hindu-Arabic numeral system was invented in India around 500 CE.[7][8] The system was revolutionary in that it included a zero and positional notation. It is considered an important milestone in the development of mathematics. One may distinguish between this positional system, which is identical throughout the family, and the precise glyphs used to write the numerals, which vary regionally. The glyphs most commonly used in conjunction with the Latin alphabet since early modern times are 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. Although the phrase "Arabic numeral" is frequently capitalized, it is sometimes written in lower case: for instance, in its entry in the Oxford English dictionary.[9] This helps distinguish it from "Arabic numerals" as the East Arabic numerals specific to the Arabs.

Contents
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1 History o 1.1 Origins 1.1.1 Common misconceptions o 1.2 Adoption in Europe o 1.3 Adoption in Russia o 1.4 Adoption in China 2 Evolution of symbols 3 See also 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History
[edit] Origins
Main article: History of the Hindu-Arabic numeral 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.[10]

Brahmi numerals (lower row) in India in the 1st century CE

Modern-day Arab telephone keypad with two forms of Hindu-Arabic numerals: Western Arabic/European numerals on the left and Eastern Arabic numerals on the right

The numeral system came to be known to both the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, whose book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825 in Arabic, and the Arab mathematician Al-Kindi, who wrote four volumes, "On the Use of the Indian Numerals" (Ketab fi Isti'mal al-'Adad al-Hindi) about 830. Their work was principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle East and the West.[11] In the 10th century, Middle-Eastern mathematicians extended the decimal numeral system to include fractions, as recorded in a treatise by Syrian mathematician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi in 952953. The decimal point notation was introduced by Sind ibn Ali he also wrote the earliest treatise on Arabic numerals.

A distinctive West Arabic variant of the symbols begins to emerge around the 10th century in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus, called ghubar ("sand-table" or "dust-table") numerals, which are the direct ancestor of the modern Western Arabic numerals used throughout the world.[12] The first mentions of the numerals in the West are found in the Codex Vigilanus of 976.[13] From the 980s, Gerbert of Aurillac (later, Pope Sylvester II) used his position to spread knowledge of the numerals in Europe. Gerbert studied in Barcelona in his youth. He was known to have requested mathematical treatises concerning the astrolabe from Lupitus of Barcelona after he had returned to France.
[edit] Common misconceptions

One popular folkloric but false explanation for the origin of modern Arabic numerals claims that the original forms of these symbols indicated their value through the number of angles they contained.[14][15]

[edit] Adoption in Europe

A German manuscript page teaching use of Arabic numerals (Talhoffer Thott, 1459). At this time, knowledge of the numerals was still widely seen as esoteric, and Talhoffer presents them with the Hebrew alphabet and astrology.

Woodcut showing the 16th century astronomical clock of Uppsala Cathedral, with two clockfaces, one with Arabic and one with Roman numerals.

Late 18th century French revolutionary "decimal" clockface.

In 825 Al-Khwrizm wrote a treatise in Arabic, On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, which was translated into Latin from Arabic in the 12th century as Algoritmi de numero Indorum, where Algoritmi, the translator's rendition of the author's name, gave rise to the word algorithm (Latin algorithmus, "calculation method"). Fibonacci, a mathematician born in the Republic of Pisa who had studied in Bejaia (Bougie), Algeria, promoted the Indian numeral system in Europe with his book Liber Abaci, which was written in 1202:
"When my father, who had been appointed by his country as public notary in the customs at Bugia acting for the Pisan merchants going there, was in charge, he summoned me to him while I was still a child, and having an eye to usefulness and future convenience, desired me to stay there and receive instruction in the school of accounting. There, when I had been introduced to

the art of the Indians' nine symbols through remarkable teaching, knowledge of the art very soon pleased me above all else and I came to understand it.."

The numerals are arranged with their lowest value digit to the right, with higher value positions added to the left. This arrangement was adopted identically into the numerals as used in Europe. Languages written in the Latin alphabet run from left to right, unlike languages written in the Arabic alphabet. Hence, from the point of view of the reader, numerals in Western texts are written with the highest power of the base first whereas numerals in Arabic texts are written with the lowest power of the base first. The European acceptance of the numerals was accelerated by the invention of the printing press, and they became widely known during the 15th century. Early evidence of their use in Britain includes a 1445 inscription on the tower of Heathfield Church, Sussex; a 1448 inscription on a wooden lych-gate of Bray Church, Berkshire; and a 1487 inscription on the belfry door at Piddletrenthide church, Dorset; and in Scotland a 1470 inscription on the tomb of the first Earl of Huntly in Elgin Cathedral. (See G.F. Hill, The Development of Arabic Numerals in Europe for more examples.) In central Europe, the King of Hungary Ladislaus the Posthumous, started the use of Arabic numerals, which appear for the first time in a royal document of 1456.[16] By the mid-16th century, they were in common use in most of Europe.[17] Roman numerals remained in use mostly for the notation of Anno Domini years, and for numbers on clockfaces. Sometimes, Roman numerals are still used for enumeration of lists (as an alternative to alphabetical enumeration), and numbering pages in prefatory material in books.

[edit] Adoption in Russia

Cyrillic numerals were a numbering system derived from the Cyrillic alphabet, used by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used in Russia as late as the early 18th century when Peter the Great replaced it with Arabic numerals.

[edit] Adoption in China

During Ming and Qing dynasties (when Arabic numerals were first introduced into China), some Chinese mathematicians used Chinese numeral characters as positional system digits. After the Qing dynasty, both the Chinese numeral characters and the Suzhou numerals were replaced by Arabic numerals in mathematical writings.

[edit] Evolution of symbols

Main articles: Algorism and glyphs used with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system

The numeral system employed, known as algorism, is positional decimal notation. Various symbol sets are used to represent numbers in the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, all of which evolved from the Brahmi numerals. The symbols used to represent the system have split into various typographical variants since the Middle Ages:

The widespread Western Arabic numerals used with the Latin alphabet, in the table below labelled European, descended from the West Arabic numerals developed in al-Andalus and the Maghreb. (There are two typographic styles for rendering European numerals, known as lining figures and text figures). The Arabic-Indic or Eastern Arabic numerals used with the Arabic alphabet developed primarily in what is now Iraq. A variant of the Eastern Arabic numerals used in the Persian and Urdu languages is shown as East Arabic-Indic. There is substantial variation in usage of glyphs for the Eastern Arabic-Indic digits, especially for the digits four, five, six, and seven.[18] The Devanagari numerals used with Devanagari and related variants are grouped as Indian numerals.

The evolution of the numerals in early Europe is shown on a table created by the French scholar J.E. Montucla in his Histoire de la Mathematique, which was published in 1757:

The Arabic numerals are encoded in ASCII (and Unicode) at positions 48 to 57:
Binary Octal Decimal Hexadecimal Glyph

0011 0000 0011 0001 0011 0010 0011 0011 0011 0100 0011 0101 0011 0110 0011 0111 0011 1000 0011 1001

060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 070 071

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Chinese numerals
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Numeral systems by culture Hindu-Arabic numerals

Western Arabic Eastern Arabic Indian family Burmese

Khmer Mongolian Thai

East Asian numerals Chinese Japanese Suzhou Korean Vietnamese Counting rods Alphabetic numerals Abjad Armenian ryabhaa Cyrillic Other systems Aegean Attic Babylonian Brahmi Egyptian Etruscan Inuit Mayan Quipu Roman Sumerian Urnfield Ge'ez Greek (Ionian) Hebrew

List of numeral system topics

Positional systems by base Decimal (10) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, 30, 36, 60 more
vde

Chinese numerals are characters for writing numbers in Chinese. Today, speakers of Chinese use three numeral systems: the ubiquitous system of Arabic numerals, along with two ancient Chinese numeral systems. The older of the ancient systems is the Suzhou numerals or huama system. It has gradually been supplanted by the Arabic system in writing numbers. It is the only surviving variation of the rod numeral system; this system has been popular only in Chinese markets, such as those in Hong Kong before the 1990s. The later ancient numeral system is the written numbers system. It is still in use when writing numbers in long form, such as on cheques to hinder forgery. This character system is roughly analogous to spelling out a number in English text. The Chinese character system can be classified as part of the language, but it still counts as a number system. Most people in China now use the Arabic system for convenience. Individual Chinese characters in this article link to their dictionary entries.

Chinese numerals
Chinese numerals are characters for writing numbers in Chinese. Today, speakers of Chinese use three numeral systems: the ubiquitous system of Arabic numerals, along with two ancient Chinese numeral systems. The older of the ancient systems is the Suzhou numerals or huama system. It has gradually been supplanted by the Arabic system in writing numbers. It is the only surviving variation of the rod numeral system; this system has been popular only in Chinese markets, such as those in Hong Kong before the 1990s. The later ancient numeral system is the written numbers system. It is still in use when writing numbers in long form, such as on cheques to hinder forgery. This character system is roughly analogous to spelling out a number in English text. The Chinese character system can be classified as part of the language, but it still counts as a number system. Most people in China now use the Arabic system for convenience. Individual Chinese characters in this article link to their dictionary entries.

Japanese numerals
The system of Japanese numerals is the system of number names used in the Japanese language. The Japanese numerals in writing are entirely based on the Chinese numerals and the grouping of large numbers follow the Chinese tradition of grouping by 10,000. Two sets of pronunciations for the numerals exist in Japanese: one is based on Sino-Japanese (on'yomi) readings of the Chinese characters and the other is based on the Japanese kun'yomi readings