Mathematics
By Gilberto Duque Muñoz
This could sound as a frivolous question, but the answer is much more elaborate than that, so any study of mathematics should start with defining what, in fact, it is.
The word “mathematics” comes from a Greek origin and it is very figurative, for it was in ancient Greece where it had its more or less actual meaning. The word from which it originates means “science” or “learning”, but already in ancient moments it has progressed and expanded to its modern meaning.
Mathematics is one of the abstract sciences, this is for the studying of numbers, quantities, changes, structures, patterns – the things that exist today only as far as there are people to recognize them and created only by person’s abstractions. Even betwixt the mathematicians themselves it does not exist unanimity about whether the concepts they are studying currently. Nevertheless, mathematics as a science developed from archaic activities like calculating or estimation, observations of items in reality and so on, and just in course of time moved into the sphere of literal abstraction.
Logic, or mathematical rigor, is one of the most notable figures of mathematics. In short, it means any research in this area is susceptible to verify checking that may with 100% confidence state whether it is correct or incorrect. Although this concept already existed in past times, it was a kind of remote ideal until the beginning of the 20th century, when calculating machines made it true to actually proof check the mayor of the mathematical constructions.
Despite its abstract essence, throughout history mathematics has been applied in the real life in many spheres of human activity, from architecture to education, thus giving birth to the field of applied mathematics of contemporary times. Although in the thinking of many mathematicians exists something far-away and unattainable, even the pure mathematical achievements often lead to discoveries that find
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mathematics http://www.math.tamu.edu/~dallen/masters/hist_frame.htm