1-2. Story
of numbers started when our ancestors found out there was a difference between
one apple and two apples. In order to communicate clearly, they needed to come
up with two different names for them. We don’t know what they called them, but
we are sure that soon after they faced another problem which was a new word for
three apples. It took a while that they found out the similarity between them,
so they decided to disintegrate the name into two parts: one part to indicate
the difference and the other to reflect the similarity. Then they said one
apple, two apples, and three apples.
However, there was another issue that they used different adjectives for different
objects; for example the adjectives that they used for apples were different
from swords or cats. Another big leap was needed that they conceived
the similarity between two men and two apples.
To understand
the importance of this abstraction, we should know that our brain is removing
all components of apples and men to find one similarity between them which is
their quantity, apart from that they are completely different. We can’t even imagine
it because we’re removing their shape, size and every feature; we only
understand it. So they invented one set of adjectives for all different
quantities which was a huge development.
Here
one is not a number. It’s merely an adjective which is serving a noun.
When one as a number was born that our ancestors were able to separate it from
the nouns which they had counted. Physical one is different from mathematical one, physical one is meaningless without a noun or unit; if you told somebody that I'd been waiting for you for one, how could they know if you meant one second, minute, hour or even year, however in math nobody needs to know what one is referring to. That’s why they invented a different symbol
for it: 1.
