The ancient Egyptians did not have the concept of zero, and their descriptions of 1 to 9 were all represented by drawing vertical lines. 1 is one vertical, and 9 is nine vertical. Since 10, it has been replaced by items. 10 is a rope and a roll of rope means 100. Lotus stands for 1000, a finger stands for 10000, a tadpole stands for 100000, and a person holding hands stands for 1000000. When the ancient Egyptians expressed 5,000,000, they did not use five vertical lines to add a person who raised his hand, but drew a person who raised his hand five times. It's a bit complicated, but it's a habit and quite accurate.
In addition to numbers, the ancient Egyptians also used accurate methods to express fractions. They wrote numbers under this symbol to show what the score was. Some special scores are expressed by special symbols, which are said to come from a myth, such as 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 116, 1/32,/kloc.
Digital symbols in ancient Egypt say that Horus, the eagle god, fought a bitter battle with his evil uncle Seth when he avenged his father Osiris. In the battle, Seth gouged out Horus's eye and tore it to pieces. These scores are represented by these fragments. For example, part of the eye is 1/2, the eyeball is 1/4, and the eyebrow is 1/8. Interestingly, these figures add up to 63/64, not a complete eye. The ancient Egyptians must have calculated this result. They said that the lost 1/64 was filled by the god of wisdom.
When indicating that the fraction of some molecules is not 1, the ancient Egyptians used the addition of fractions, for example, 2/5 was expressed by the sum of 1/3 and115. From this representation of fractions, we can easily draw the conclusion that the ancient Egyptians had mastered the addition and subtraction of fractions.
This knowledge 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. Part of the Rhine papyrus scroll was discovered by an Englishman HenryRhind in 1858, 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.
A set of numbers carved on the flint board 5000 years ago, because they want to measure the land area, so 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.
The unit of length in ancient Egypt was the wrist ruler, and 1 wrist ruler was equal to the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, which was about 20.62 inches. Of course, not everyone's elbow is 20.62 inches from the tip of the middle finger, which is probably decided by a Pharaoh, but which one is not very detailed.
Wrist ruler is represented by forearm and hand in hieroglyphics, pronounced meh. 1 wrist ruler is divided into 7 palms, each palm is equal to 4 fingers. A square with a side length of 1 elbow, half of its diagonal (29. 16 inch long) is called Leimen, which can be divided into 20 fingers, and is the second unit of length and the main unit of land measurement. 100 wrist ruler is called 1 katu, and it is also the basic unit of land survey. Area and unit of volume shall be subject to wrist ruler.
The main unit of capacity of ancient Egyptians was Hanu, about 29 cubic inches, and 10 Hanu was Hagardt. Another unit of capacity is khar, which is equal to 2/3 of 1 cubit, or equivalent to the capacity of a container with a diameter of 9 palms and a depth of 1 cubit. The water of 1 hannu is designated as 5 debens. The unit of capacity comes from the weight unit of water, which is strikingly similar to the fact that we set one cubic meter of water as 1000 kg. 1 1 0 Deben is1Gadet, which is equal to1the weight of the ring. It seems that the Egyptians made the gold ring heavy enough.
Mathematical symbols in ancient Egypt