Answer to Question #115135 in Algebra for Felicia Ngubandze

Question

Explain when each of the following algebraic aspect or concept was developed.
State in what part of the world was that aspect or concept developed.
(i) Base ten place value to write numbers,
(ii) Negative coefficient,
(iii) Letters to indicate variables
(iv) Zero
(v) Equation sign

Answer 1

1. Base-10 is used in most modern civilizations and was the most common system for ancient civilizations, most likely because humans have 10 fingers. Egyptian hieroglyphs(AFRICA) dating back to 3000 B.C. show evidence of a decimal system.
2. By the 12th century, al-Karaji's(Islamic mathematician - ASIA) successors were to state the general rules of signs and use them to solve polynomial divisions.
3. At the end of the 16th century François Viète(French mathematician - EUROPE) introduced the idea of representing known and unknown numbers by letters, nowadays called variables, and of computing with them as if they were numbers, in order to obtain the result by a simple replacement. Viète's convention was to use consonants for known values and vowels for unknowns.
4.  Sumerian scribes used spaces to denote absences in number columns as early as 4,000 years ago, but the first recorded use of a zero-like symbol dates to sometime around the third century B.C. in ancient Babylon(ASIA). The Babylonians employed a number system based around values of 60, and they developed a specific sign—two small wedges—to differentiate between magnitudes in the same way that modern decimal-based systems use zeros to distinguish between tenths, hundreds and thousandths.
5. The equation sign (=) is a mathematical symbol used to indicate equality. It was invented in 1557 by Robert Recorde(Welsh physician and mathematician - EUROPE). In an equation, the equals sign is placed between two expressions that have the same value, or for which one studies the conditions under which they have the same value.