|
African Mathematics Originated Basic Inventions |
|
|
Primitive (the first) Africans, by having no model to follow and no one with whom they could consult, had to daily invent everything needed for surviving and for activities of living--e.g. shelter, rafts, crude clothing, tools, weapons and traps.
Mathematics was required for all this as, for example, in figuring out how to throw stones at attacking animals--and when--and with what angle--and with what force. As individual Primitive Africans began joining up with fellows to create the Very Ancient African era, in order to live in villages and in larger settlements more massive and more permanent living structures were built. The earliest builders who used rocks and dead trees for building invented tools for cutting down trees and for shaping and cutting stone. Math was needed for building huts on marsh land; to count the village members; and to account for a host of other things which together led to the formation of "Number" words.
The invention of agriculture by Africans (?20,000 BC) by means of deliberate planting called forth the devising of hoes, digging-sticks, and sickles for reaping. Ancient Egyptian wall paintings show early plows were fashioned by harnessing an animal to the heavy, short-handled, long-bladed hoe. And this is still in use. Africans invented the wheel, pottery, the marked stick for measuring, ways of making fire and the smelting of copper and iron--the forerunner necessities for building massive brick structures and giant stone pyramids. Maybe as early as 10,500 BC and certainly by 4000 BC Ancient Nubians and Egyptians had designed inclined planes to raise the great stone blocks of the pyramids into position—some blocks weighing 50 tons. To cut such large pieces of stone, shape them, and move them over great distances into position required many inventions--and each based on math. Every detail required figuring out how to use levers, and at what angles, and to place things at the exact angles on the ground in order to correspond to the position of the stars and planets in the sky. So ingenious were these measurements--and done within a fraction of an inch in accuracy--that to this day the Western world has not been able to figure it out how it was done.
In discussing the various inventions of Primitive Africans the common feature of what was probably extracted is the math equation of 1 + 1 = 2. Here, both "1" and "=" (i.e. the equal sign) are categories while 2 is an all-inclusive master category of 1 + 1. In this Principle of Invention the 1 + 1 are the parts and the 2 is the sum of those parts as well as the abstract or concrete work products of what 1 + 1 do. This is a useful concept for analysis and synthesis. |
