
Are Numbers the alphabet for the language of Maths
Is maths even a language?
We portray our ideas with it, we use it to express things, we use it as the place to go when proving something using algebra. So if like me you would say that maths is a language, then are numbers its alphabet?
Well, in an algebraic equation (y=mx+c), we use letters to represent the numbers, so the numbers are not always in the equation, but are being replaced with the Phoenician alphabet (a,b,c,d,e, etc…). But numbers have worth and meaning.
For example, 1 means that a there is only a single of something, 2 means double, or one more than one, three is two more than one, etc…
1 can also be written with letters, as one. So you could make:
1 + 1 = 2 into one plus one equals two. We are using letters to portray the numbers. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet and there is an infinite number of numbers (actually: infinite possibilities only ten digits (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0))
So letters can be used to show numbers and numbers can be written as symbols and with letters.
Is maths a language?
Are numbers the alphabet for maths?
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