Who invented mathmatics?

I suppose the first human that took 2 rocks and added one more could be credited with inventing math.

However, I think the Arabs were the people who really made their mark

Even though the Arabs were great contributors to mathematics, the Greeks founded most of it.

The Chinese and the Persian made also great advances.

There are two types of mathematics in our culture. Classical statics and modern Western dynamics without which you would still be carrying jugs of water from the river on your head.

I think Jesus invented the latter although I don't much care for the word "invented". The Pythagoreans were persecuted as well. The former is simply an ever increasing sophistication of the obvious in the here and now.

How first thought to apply maths to nature then? when did physics first come about?

Great question...I would honestly love to know the answer if anyone has time to research it. I've always found it nothing short of amazing that someone, during a time and amid conditions in which survival itself took strenuous effort, was also observant enough to notice all of these patterns and then had the wherewithal and skill to come up with symbols to notate them and communicate their findings to those around them to the extent that they became universally understood and used.

I've also wondered the same thing about written music. Who heard middle C and decided to come up with the system of notation that again, made expression through voice or musical instrument universally available.

And how did these systems of notation get communicated to the extent that they did become universally used during a time when communication was much less easily achieved.

I just find the whole thing fascinating to think about and really nothing short of miraculous.

Rebecca wrote-



Pythagoras I think. Then a long period of monastic moaning in echo chambers although with more subtleties than a wolf howling at the moon until it blossomed in the springtime somewhere around 1,000 AD give or take a generation or two and put an end to the Dark Ages and all that Camelot bullshit.

As a result you can decide on which continent to live, how to have your hair done and what topping to have on your ice-cream.

It's more than a miracle. It has actually happened.

Really? Pythagoras is responsible to musical notation? I had no idea that was the case. Now I feel compelled to research it just to find out if that is true or if you're just pulling my leg.

As to the rest of your post - about hairdo's (how do you spell that word?) ice cream toppings and flight, etc.- yeah it's all just miraculous to me. I'm in awe of these people who can think these things up.

Music and math are strongly connected---the law of stings dates from the prehistoric. Rhythm by itself requires the ability to count, be it conscious or unconscious. The ability to count seems to be universal, as I've had pets who can recognize one, two----many and sorted their kibble into individual piles before eating.

The Babylonians were traders and bankers and recognized, in their own way, the concept of interest, compounded and debt and had prepared tables of what today are known as annuities, and sinking funds--consequently algorithms existed well before algebra and calculus refined the rules. Platonic solids were known well before Plato and Euclid, so were the concepts of relative primes, and right angles. Euclid did not invent plane geometry, he documented it--or actually his books were out on loan when the Romans burned the Library of Alexandria, so their the only known documents that survived.

So who invented mathematics---I have to say it was Lucy, the protohuman who remains were found at Olduvai George. Why, to survive Lucy had to recognize patterns and that recognition required some knowledge of math.

Rap

Everything is math.

http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://members.aol.com/bbyars1/first.html

The first mathematics can be traced to the ancient country of Babylon and to Egypt during the 3rd millennium BC. A number system with a base of 60 had developed in Babylon over time. Large numbers and fractions could be represented and formed the basis of advanced mathematical evolution. From at least 1700 BC, Pythagorean triples were studied. The study of linear and quadratic equations led to form of primitive numerical algebra. Meanwhile, similar figures, areas, and volumes were studied as well as the primitive values for pi obtained. The Greeks inherited the Babylonian principles and developed mathematics from 450 BC. They discovered that all real numbers could not accurately express all values, such as relationships between sides. Irrational numbers were born. The Greeks progressed rapidly in mathematics from 300 BC. Progress also sped in the Islamic countries of Syria, India, and Iran. Their work had a different focus from that of the Greeks, but all Greek principles held true. This basis was later brought to Europe and developed further there.

The History of Mathematics and Accounting

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmathmatics.htm

Algebra
According to http://www.museums.reading.ac.uk: The first treatise on algebra was written by Diophantus of Alexandria in the 3rd century AD. Algebra comes from the Arabic word al-jabr an ancient medical term meaning "the reunion of broken parts.''
Archimedes
Archimedes was a mathematician and inventor from ancient Greece, best known for his discovery of the relation between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cyclinder, for his formulation of a hydrostatic principle (Archimedes' principle) and for inventing the Archimedes screw (a device for raising water).
Differential
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (b. 1646, d. 1716) was a German philosopher, mathematician, and logician who is probably most well known for having invented the differential and integral calculus (independently of Sir Isaac Newton).

Logarithms and the Decimal Point
John Napier
John Napier was the Scottish mathematician who invented logarithms and the decimal point.


http://www.musicbizadvice.com/who_invented_musical_notation.htm

Well, it wasn't Pythagoras, but it is believed he was the first to discover the concept of intervals with respect to numerical ratios
http://www.imagiverse.org/questions/archives/mathematics1.htm#QUESTION_8

2Packs wrote-



You just cribbed that out of Spengler.

rap-

You're a genius. We all know that. Your avvie is tasteful false modesty.

So will you read Spengler's Meaning of Numbers chapter and explain it for me in simple language.

Unlike Spengler, I have faith that god, not the greeks, made integers and Alexander wasn't a god. Irrational numbers; however, are man made and Alexander was a man.

Rap

And Ulysses is a story about how ridiculous men are.