MATH IS AWESOME

Your Name Here Computer Applications Class Instructor: Mr. PC McRam Today’s Date

The world is a better place thanks to the discoveries from mathematicians throughout history. Their devotion to the study of how our universe works made our lives easier, more productive, and has opened up new worlds of discovery and exploration. (Naders, 2014)

According to a study performed by the Mathematics Department of Nashville University, the efficiency factor for human workers that use have tripled in the last 50 years thanks to advancements in technology and mathematics. (Geezerheimer, 2005)

The origins of mathematical thought lie in the concepts of number, magnitude, and form. Modern studies of animal cognition have shown that these concepts are not unique to humans. Such concepts would have been part of everyday life in hunter-gatherer societies. The idea of the "number" concept evolving gradually over time is supported by the existence of languages which preserve the distinction between "one", "two", and "many", but not of numbers larger than two.

Prehistoric artifacts discovered in Africa, dated 20,000 years old or more suggest early attempts to quantify time. The Ishango bone, found near the headwaters of the Nile river (northeastern Congo), may be more than 20,000 years old and consists of a series of carved in three columns running the length of the bone. Common interpretations are that the Ishango bone shows either the earliest known demonstration of sequences of prime numbers or a six-month . Peter Rudman argues that the development of the concept of prime numbers could only have come about after the concept of division, which he dates to after 10,000 BC, with prime numbers probably not being understood until about 500 BC. He also writes that "no attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and 20, and some Figure 1 - The Ishango bone numbers that are almost multiples of 10." The Ishango bone, according to on exhibition at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural scholar Alexander Marshack, may have influenced the later development of Sciences. (Wikipedia, mathematics in Egypt as, like some entries on the Ishango bone, Egyptian Ishango Bone, 2016) arithmetic also made use of multiplication by 2; this, however, is disputed.

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Predynastic Egyptians of the 5th millennium BC pictorially represented geometric designs. It has been claimed that megalithic monuments in England and Scotland, dating from the 3rd millennium BC, incorporate geometric ideas such as circles, ellipses, and Pythagorean triples in their design. All of the above are disputed however, and the currently oldest undisputed mathematical documents are from Babylonian and dynastic

Egyptian sources. (Wikipedia, 2016) Figure 2 Great of Giza, Kheops. (Wikipedia, 3rd Millineum BC, 2019)

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Some of the more useful mathematical formulas are listed in the table below:

Formula Name of Formula History The earliest methods for solving quadratic equations were geometric. Babylonian −푏 ± √푏2 − 4푎푐 cuneiform tablets contain 푥 = Quadratic Formula 2푎 problems reducible to solving quadratic equations. (Wikipedia, Quadratic Formula, 2016) The best known approximations to π dating before the Common Era were accurate to two decimal 푐 places; this was improved 휋 = Definition of Pi 푑 upon in Chinese mathematics in particular by the mid first millennium, to an accuracy of seven decimal places. (Wikipedia, Pi, 2016) The fundamental theorem of calculus relates differentiation and 푥 integration, showing that 푑 Fundamental Theorem of ∫ 푓(푠)푑푠 = 푓(푥) these two operations are Calculus 푑푥 푎 essentially inverses of one another. (Wikipedia, Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, 2016) A recent assessment (by Ofer Gal) about the early history of the inverse square law is "by the late 1670s", the assumption of an "inverse proportion between gravity 퐺푚 푚 Newton’s Law of Universal 퐹 = 1 2 and the square of distance 2 Gravitation 푑 was rather common and had been advanced by a number of different people for different reasons". (Wikipedia, Newton's Law of gravitation, 2016)

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As you can see, the world is a better place thanks to mathematicians whose discoveries have made our future world possible.

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Bibliography Geezerheimer, W. (2005). Technology is Better Than Outhouses. University of Southern California.

Naders, S. (2014). Your Brain is Gray. Barstow: Brainian Publishing Company.

Wikipedia. (2016). Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_calculus

Wikipedia. (2016, 01 12). . Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics

Wikipedia. (2016). Ishango Bone. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishango_bone

Wikipedia. (2016). Newton's Law of gravitation. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation

Wikipedia. (2016). Pi. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

Wikipedia. (2016). Quadratic Formula. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_formula

Wikipedia. (2019). 3rd Millineum BC. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_millennium_BC

Table of Figures

Figure 2 - The Ishango bone on exhibition at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. (Wikipedia, Ishango Bone, 2016) ...... 1 Figure 1 Great Pyramid of Giza, Kheops. (Wikipedia, 3rd Millineum BC, 2019) ...... 2

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