In ancient China, it was a bamboo computing device. Arithmetic refers to the technology of operating this computing device, and also refers to all the mathematical knowledge related to calculation at that time. The word arithmetic officially appeared in Nine Chapters of Arithmetic.
The Nine Chapters Arithmetic is divided into nine chapters, namely Tian Fang and Su Mi, which are mostly practical names. For example, "square field" refers to the shape of land, and the calculation of land area belongs to the scope of geometry; "Millet" is a synonym for grain, which talks about the exchange of various grains, mainly involving proportion, and belongs to the arithmetic category. It can be seen that "arithmetic" at that time refers to the whole of mathematics.
It was not until the Song and Yuan Dynasties that the word "mathematics" appeared. In the field of mathematicians, mathematics and arithmetic are often used together. Of course, the mathematics here only refers to the mathematics in ancient China, which is different from the mathematical system in ancient Greece, and it focuses on the study of algorithms.
From19th century, some western mathematics disciplines including algebra and trigonometry were introduced into China. Western missionaries mostly used mathematics, Japanese later used the word mathematics, and China still used "arithmetic" in ancient arithmetic.
1953, chinese mathematical society established a committee to examine mathematical terms, and defined the meaning of "arithmetic", but arithmetic and mathematics still coexist. 1937, Tsinghua University also had a "computing department". 1939, in order to unify, a special "mathematics" was determined.
About the generation of arithmetic, we still have to talk about numbers. Numbers are used to express and discuss quantitative problems. There are different types of quantities and also different types of numbers. As early as the initial stage of ancient development, due to the needs of human daily life and production practice, the simplest concept of natural numbers came into being in the initial stage of cultural development.
Arithmetic is the oldest, most basic and primitive part of mathematics. It studies the properties and operations of numbers. The oldest mathematics, arithmetic, is formed by accumulating and sorting out the properties of numbers and the experience of four operations between numbers in the application process.
All mathematics in ancient times was called arithmetic, and modern algebra and number theory originally developed from arithmetic. Later, the concepts of arithmetic and mathematics appeared, which replaced the meaning of arithmetic and included all mathematics, and arithmetic became a branch of it.
Arithmetic is a basic branch of mathematics. It focuses on natural numbers and nonnegative fractions. The content of arithmetic includes two parts. The first part discusses the reading, writing and basic operations of natural numbers, including carry system and notation.
Mainly decimal, other decimals and decimals only use different cardinality, and can be calculated according to the principle and principle of decimal digits. Another part of arithmetic includes the application of arithmetic operation methods and principles. Such as the calculation of fractions and percentages, various quantities and their calculation, ratios and proportions, and arithmetic application problems.