A Story Of Numbers, Concepts, History and Notes PDF

Numbers are the foundation of mathematics. Be it counting sheep in pastoral fields to unravelling the solution of an equation these days, numbers have a magical story to tell. A Story of Numbers is a guide to help students understand how numbers came into being, how counting happens and how the number system of today came into existence. The A Story of Numbers Class Notes PDF elaborates the concept in a simple and engaging way for Class 8 students.

History of the Number System

Thousands of years ago, people wanted to count the number of food and animals, the number of tools, and they found a solution to this problem by inventing numbers.

• The Bakhshali Manuscript (3rd century CE) depicts the early written numbers.
• One of the earliest mathematicians to use numbers for calculation was Aryabhata (499 CE).
• Indian numbers spread to the Arab world around 800 CE. Arab scholar Al-Khwarizmi made some additions to the numbers and his calculations.
• Later on, around 1100 CE, the numbers spread to Europe and Africa.
• By the 17th century, the entire world had adopted these symbols, which we now know as Hindu-Arabic numerals (0–9).
• An algorithm is a term derived from the name Al-Khwarizmi.

What is the Number System?

A number system is a standard sequence of numbers used for counting. When counting a set, we use a set of objects, names, or symbols in a standard fixed order: 1 comes before 2, which comes before 3 and so on.

Counting is the process of pairing the elements of a set with the number sequence. We do this to determine how many members of the set are present.

Mechanism of Counting Numbers

Early humans developed fundamental systems for counting and recording numbers.

• Counting with Sticks – Method 1: They used sticks or stones to represent objects. One stick was used for one cow, and five sticks (|||||) represented five cows. This helped them keep track and ensure all cows returned safely.
• Sounds as Numbers – Method 2: Some people used sounds or letters to represent numbers. For example, “A” for the first cow, “B” for the second cow, etc. But since there were only 26 letters in the alphabet, they could only count up to 26 objects with this method.