Origins...


John Baez has pointed to some interesting sites.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/this.week.html
[Note this site may blow your mind, beware.]

He says:

===========JB===========
But before I dive into this heavy stuff, something fun. Thanks to
Christine Dantas' blog, I just saw a webpage on the origins of math
and writing in Mesopotamia:

11) Duncan J. Melville, Tokens: the origin of mathematics,
from his website Mesopotamian Mathematics,
http://it.stlawu.edu/%7Edmelvill/mesomath/

Before people in the Near East wrote on clay tablets, there were
"tokens":

12) The Schoyen Collection, MS 5067/1-8, Neolithic plain counting
tokens possibly representing 1 measure of grain, 1 animal and 1 man or
1 day's labour, respectively, http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.11/inde
x.html

These are little geometric clay figures that represented things like
sheep, jars of oil, and various amounts of grain. They are found
throughout the Near East starting with the agricultural revolution in
about 8000 BC. Apparently they were used for contracts! Eventually
groups of them were sealed in clay envelopes, so any attempt to tamper
with them would be visible.

But, it's annoying to have to break a clay envelope just to see what's
in it. So, after a while, they started marking the envelopes to say
what was inside.

Later, these marks were simply drawn on tablets. Eventually they gave
up on the tokens - a triumph of convenience over security. The marks
on tablets then developed into the Babylonian number system! The
transformation was complete by 3000 BC.

So, five millennia of gradual abstraction led to the writing of numbers!
From three tokens representing jars of oil, we eventually reach the
abstract number "3" applicable to anything.

===========end JB============

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.



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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Origins...
    ... Duncan J. Melville, Tokens: ... groups of them were sealed in clay envelopes, ... these marks were simply drawn on tablets. ...
    (uk.business.agriculture)
  • Re: Origins...
    ... Duncan J. Melville, Tokens: ... groups of them were sealed in clay envelopes, ... From three tokens representing jars of oil, ...
    (uk.business.agriculture)