The knowledge of mathematical symbols in ancient Egypt mainly comes from two papyrus documents: one is called Moscow cursive document, and the other is ***25 questions. The other piece is called Rheinland Bluegrass Block Literature, which is also the most famous document that records the common sense of mathematics in ancient Egypt, with 85 questions. It was discovered in 1858 by an Englishman, HenryRhind, and is now in the British Museum. Because the author is a man named Ames, it is also called Ames Grass Piece Literature. It begins with an interesting sentence: a guide to all secrets. If you look at this sentence alone, it is easy to mistake this papyrus for the Egyptian version of "100,000 Why".

For these two papyrus, some people think it is a primary school exercise book, while others think it is a school textbook. Whatever it is, we can get a glimpse of the mathematics level in ancient Egypt.

In the 3rd1title of Ahmes' cursive script, a linear equation is recorded: a number, its 2/3, its 1/2 and its 1/7, all of which add up to 33. There is no question and answer on this topic, but the obvious meaning is that let's solve this number. Even now, such a question is difficult to answer without algebra knowledge of grade one, and its answer is fractions.

It can be seen from question 63 of this papyrus that the purpose of mathematics is still to serve life. This topic is like this: Give 700 loaves of bread to four people, the first person gets 2/3, the second person gets 1/2, the third person gets 1/3, and the fourth person gets 1/4. This question gives the calculation method and has the correct answer.

But we can easily see the loopholes in the writing process, and the result is 400, which means that the first person gets 2/3 of 400, not 2/3 of 700 pieces of bread, which is not in line with our habit of setting the total as "1". Moreover, two-thirds of the first person's 400 is not an integer. It seems that in order to really divide the bread, he has to break another piece and take it back. Now we already know how to avoid such problems when writing lesson plans.

The ancient Egyptians had no special symbols for multiplication and division. They use a pair of close legs to represent addition, and the left leg is naturally negative. Their calculation of multiplication and division is also based on addition and subtraction, which is actually in line with the calculation principle of multiplication and division. Because they want to measure the land area, their formula for calculating the area is very accurate. The area of a circle and a quadrilateral is very similar to the current calculation results, and the pi is generally around 3. Because pyramids are pyramids, they have also mastered the formula for calculating the volume of pyramids, which has theoretical guiding significance for collecting stones.