Number: The Language of Science

Number: The Language of Science by tobias dantzig

Numbers are a basic part of our lives today. Where did they come from? This book was originally written almost a century ago. However, many of the topics covered date back millenia. Numbers and language evolved and became more complex. While people have some innate number sense, the adoption of linguistic numbers was a significant breakthrough. We still use base-10 today because we have 10 fingers. Concepts like 0 and the use of algebraic variables had a significant impact on the use of numbers, but didn't come into place until much later. Rational, irrational and imaginary numbers came about only after significant work. Infinity was an interesting concept that took a while to come about. Primes and other components also played a key role and gradually came about. Many of the basic concepts we think of today were centuries in the making.