ABSTRACT
Just like in the development of other areas of science and engineering, mathematics has also played an important role in the development of reliability and safety …elds. Although the origin of the word mathematics may be traced back to the ancient Greek word mathema, which means “science, knowledge, or learning,” the history of our current number symbols, often referred to as a “Hindu-Arabic numeral system,” goes back to around 250 b.c., to the stone columns erected by the Scythian emperor of India named Asoka [1].
