COUNTING , THE MOST PRIMITIVE ART by Dr.Khin Maung Win (Maths)

MATHEMATICS 11

COUNTING , THE MOST PRIMITIVE ART

Even before man learned to write,he had to know how to count.Prehistoric man had to learn to count and would use their fingers or stones to help them.They probably made strokes on the walls one stroke for one ,two strokes for two , and so on .

Even the primitive way of marking numbers or with a few modifications as in figure two may become useful today.

figure two

For example,look at the picture in figure one.

figure one

In this picture,you will find some persons , male, female, some wearing glasses , some with hats .

Suppose we want to know how many are males, how many are females, how many wear glasses, how many are with hats.If you have a pencil and paper you will be able to know how many there are of each kind by counting the persons in the picture only once.By going over the picture only once but not four times and the method of marking the numbers as in figure two, the final list will look like this. See figure three.

figure three