Math 100 Ideas in 100 Words

g CONTENTS

Number

For many people, mathematics is synonymous with numbers. Once we’ve learned to count as children, numbers become an integral part of our lives – we use arithmetic to manage our finances, ratios to adapt recipes in the kitchen and measurements to plan the space around us. But there is more to the mathematics of numbers than these everyday uses.

Some ideas we take for granted now caused controversy when first introduced. The number zero was not accepted in Europe until the fifteenth century, despite being a foundation of both Indian and Arabic mathematics, and imaginary numbers were frowned upon at first by many. Infinity is still a mind-boggling concept full of paradoxes.

And sometimes highly abstract concepts circle back ...