Key steps
| When | What |
|---|---|
| ~3200 BC | Cuneiform on clay tablets in Mesopotamia |
| ~1050 BC | Phoenician alphabet, ancestor of ours |
| ~628 AD | Brahmagupta in India treats zero as a number |
| 1202 | Fibonacci brings Hindu-Arabic numerals to Europe |
| ~1440 | Gutenberg's printing press |
Egypt and China developed writing on their own as well.
What math made possible
Architecture
Pyramids, cathedrals, bridges
Navigation
Ships crossing oceans by the stars
Commerce
Accounts, interest and banking
Computing
Every program is math at heart
Before and after
Before writing
- Knowledge lived in memory
- Lost when people died
- Hard to coordinate large groups
After writing
- Laws, records and contracts
- Science builds on earlier work
- Ideas cross centuries
Sources: British Museum; Encyclopaedia Britannica
Remember
Writing let knowledge outlast its discoverers, and math turned that knowledge into buildings, ships and computers.
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Answer key
- Where was cuneiform writing used?MesopotamiaOn clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia.
- Which culture's alphabet is an ancestor of ours?PhoenicianThe Phoenician alphabet led to Greek and Latin letters.
- Where was zero first treated as a number?IndiaIndian mathematicians such as Brahmagupta.
- Who brought Hindu-Arabic numerals to Europe?FibonacciFibonacci's 1202 book spread them.
- What did Gutenberg invent around 1440?The printing press with movable typeHis press made books far cheaper.