Represent — from counting to calculus
How symbols, numbers, algebra and calculus made it possible to represent and manipulate the world, building the mathematical foundation of modern AI.
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Video summary
The ideas to retain
1. We invented languages to describe the world
Before writing, we were already counting
The need to count is far older than writing. Paleolithic notched objects such as the Lebombo bone and the Ishango bone do not by themselves prove the existence of formal mathematics, but…
Numbers, position and zero
For millennia, different civilizations developed their own ways of representing quantities. The Egyptians used an additive system. The Romans did too. The Babylonians introduced a very…
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