Defining math is
not an easy task. I think you could ask this question to one hundred people and
receive one hundred different responses. When I was younger I would have said math
is simply adding and subtracting. However, now I see math as something much
more complex. It is a logical way of explaining everything in the world and you
can find math everywhere you go. Everyone uses math on a day to day basis without
realizing it. Additionally, math can be used to reason through problems we
face.
Math has many
big moments throughout history. I think math’s first big moments were when
people started figuring out how to live their day to day lives. First, people
used math when they found proportions for cooking meals, understanding
distances between places, and counting items they needed. Although these people
did not recognize it, they were using math. Slowly math became a bigger topic
in history when mathematicians realized how it could be used to explain more
aspects of the world. For example, Euclidean Geometry and Non Euclidean
Geometry were discovered. Many theorems were discovered and accepted by people
around the world. I think the history of math continues each day as people use
what we have learned in the past to continue to explain the world around us. Defining
math and exploring it’s biggest moments is difficult because math has evolved tremendously
over time. It is hard to pick the top five moments.
