The Number 1

The Background

In many ways, this entry is The First Entry, at least for mathematics. Consider that there was a time when the concept of numbers, any number at all, just didn't exist. Time passes and human civilization develops and with that, the need to start using numbers is created.

Question

Where does the history of mathematics, and indeed, the history of numbers, begin?

Answer

Frankly, any answer is going to be speculation, lost in the mists of history. But we can speculate...

Analysis

When I was an accounting student, my Accounting 101 prof said that counting started when people began trading - perhaps a farmer sending goods, via a merchant, to town for sale. How do you keep track of the goods that change hands without the use of numbers?

Regardless of where numbers come from, and regardless of how proud that particular professor was at being a part of the origin of mathematics, I think we can state, without doubt, that the first number in existence was the number 1.

1 is a symbol for existence, for self, for a thing. It's easy to create a mark to indicate a single thing and then we can look at the number of ticks to count something up. The gathering up of ticks in groups of 5 gives the classic "4 vertical lines with a crosshatch fifth line" that we see in some parts of the world:

Check out the number 1 from different parts of the world in this image (courtesy of quora.com):

For more information check out the following (comment to add a resource to the list!):

Wikipedia article on the Documentary The Story of 1
Images of numerals in different countries

Where might you have come from?

Fact-orials index

The Start of Everything - Fact-orials Table of Contents

Where might we go now?

Numbers:

• Counting/Natural Numbers
• The Number 0
• Prime and Composite Numbers

Operations with Numbers:

• Addition
• Multiplication
• Multiplication Table

Geometry:

• Points, Line Segment, Line