Origins of mathematics

The evolution of mathematics might be seen as an ever-increasing series of abstractions, or alternatively an expansion of subject matter. The first abstraction, which is shared by many animals, was probably that of numbers: the realization that a collection of two apples and a collection of two oranges (for example) have something in common, namely quantity of their members.

In addition to recognizing how to count physical objects, prehistoric peoples also recognized how to count abstract quantities, like time - days, seasons, years. Elementary arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) naturally followed.

The area of study known as the history of mathematics is primarily an investigation into the origin of discoveries in mathematics and, to a lesser extent, an investigation into themathematical methods and notation of the past ... Chinese mathematicsmade early contributions, including a place value system.