ABSTRACT
The term “mathematics” is difficult to define, in part, because it includes so many concepts. Symbols include markings to indicate mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square root, and others. With the invention of “zero” by mathematicians in India about AD 600, the decimal system was developed in its present form, borrowed by the Arabs in about AD 700 and subsequently adopted by European merchants. The ability to use numbers is important, but the real meaning of any mathematical operation comes from knowing what physical quantities—that is, units—are associated with the numbers. Numbers are composed of the Arabic digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 and the Hindu-Arabic number system used in modern mathematics is decimally constructed by decades where the column of a digit implies its value times 1, 10, 100, 1,000, etc. Mathematical operations also apply to the units.
