Answer to Question #342132 in Algebra for licks

Question

Multiplication and division                                                                         

(a) Where do we find early evidence of multiplication and division? (1)

(b) Approximately to what year does this evidence date back? (1)

(c) Give detail of how people multiplied and divided in your example. (2)

(d) Where in CAPS do learners start multiplying and dividing? (1)

Answer 1

The oldest known multiplication tables were used by the Babylonians about 4000 years ago.However, they used a base of 60. The oldest known tables using a base of 10 are the Chinese decimal multiplication table on bamboo strips dating to about 305 BC, during China's Warring States period.

Close parenthesis. The arrangement 8)24 was used by Michael Stifel (1487-1567 or 1486-1567) in Arithmetica integra, which was completed in 1540 and published in 1544 in Nuernberg (Cajori vol. 1, page 269; DSB).

The colon (:) was used in 1633 in a text entitled Johnson Arithmetik; In two Bookes (2nd ed.: London, 1633). However Johnson only used the symbol to indicate fractions (for example three-fourths was written 3:4); he did not use the symbol for division "dissociated from the idea of a fraction.

Kids start learning multiplication in second grade, and division in third grade. These math concepts get more advanced as time goes on.