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What is the evolutionary history of numbers?
Numbers were not invented by Arabs, but originated in ancient India.

Numbers were later mastered by Arabs for business, improved and spread to the west. Westerners used these data for the first time because they came into contact with Arabs and mistakenly thought they invented them, so they called these appellation numbers Arabic numerals, which caused this historical misunderstanding. Later, with the wide spread in the world, everyone agreed with the term "Arabic numerals", which made people in many parts of the world mistakenly think that numerals were invented by Arabs. In fact, Arabs first began to use numbers widely. After it spread to Europe, Europeans liked this convenient and applicable notation very much. Although people later learned the truth, they never corrected it because they were used to it.

Numbers were gradually created by ancient Indians in production and practice.

In ancient India, urban construction needed design and planning, and sacrifices needed to calculate the movements of the sun, the moon and the stars, so mathematical calculation came into being. Around 3000 BC, the number of residents in the Indus Valley was relatively advanced, and the decimal calculation method was adopted.

By the third century BC, a complete set of numbers appeared in India, but the writing in different regions was not completely consistent. Brahmanism was the most representative: this set of numbers was widely used at that time. Its characteristic is that every number from "1" to "9" has a special word. Modern numbers are derived from this set of numbers. In this set of numbers, there is no sign of "0" (zero). The number "0" did not appear until Gupta Dynasty (320-550 AD). The symbol "0" is used in the mathematical book "The Sun Manual" completed in the 4th century, which is just a solid point. Later, the dot evolved into a small circle "0". In this way, a set of numbers from "1" to "0" tends to be perfect. This is the great contribution of the ancient Indian people to world culture.

The numbers invented by ancient India first spread to neighboring countries such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Cambodia.