One of the simplest mathematical statements possible is 2 plus 2 equals 4.

While the concept is very easy to understand, when you write it down you have to use

mathematical symbols which are, historically speaking, a relatively recent invention.

At one point, mathematicians were doing reasonably complicated work without the benefits of

symbols at all, something which is unthinkable today.

Learn more about mathematical symbols,

where they came from and why they exist,

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. As I mentioned in the intro, there was a time when mathematics was done without symbols.

If you can imagine doing your elementary school math problems without the use of plus minus or equal symbols you can realize just

how hard this would be.

In fact it'd be difficult to do it right now without the use of symbols.

The first people we know of who used mathematics were the ancient Babylonians and Sumerians.

With their cuneiform system of writing, they were able to do reasonably complicated mathematics.

Their numeral system was base 60, as opposed to ours, which is base 10.

The theory holds that two earlier people merged to become the Sumerians, and one group had a system that was base 12,

and the other had a system that was base 5. They resolved the difference

by using 60 which is just 5 times 12. They were able to solve quadratic equations,

they knew about square and cube roots and had solved the Pythagorean theorem well before there was a guy called Pythagoras.

However, they did lack a few things.

For starters, they didn't have a zero, which is something I talked about in my previous episode about the number zero.

And they didn't really have any symbolic expressions to do equations.

It wouldn't look like algebra as we are familiar with it today.

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