Trilogy Of Numbers And Arithmetic - Book 1: History Of Numbers And Arithmetic: An Information Perspective

Book excerpt: The book is the first in the trilogy which will bring you to the fascinating world of numbers and operations with them. Numbers provide information about myriads of things. Together with operations, numbers constitute arithmetic forming in basic intellectual instruments of theoretical and practical activity of people and offering powerful tools for representation, acquisition, transmission, processing, storage, and management of information about the world.The history of numbers and arithmetic is the topic of a variety of books and at the same time, it is extensively presented in many books on the history of mathematics. However, all of them, at best, bring the reader to the end of the 19th century without including the developments in these areas in the 20th century and later. Besides, such books consider and describe only the most popular classes of numbers, such as whole numbers or real numbers. At the same time, a diversity of new classes of numbers and arithmetic were introduced in the 20th century.This book looks into the chronicle of numbers and arithmetic from ancient times all the way to 21st century. It also includes the developments in these areas in the 20th century and later. A unique aspect of this book is its information orientation of the exposition of the history of numbers and arithmetic.