The Number Concept: Its Origin and DevelopmentConant, Levi L. (Levi Leonard)
History
The Number Concept: Its Origin and Development
Conant, Levi L. (Levi Leonard)
Number concept
While considering the extent of the savage's arithmetical knowledge, of his
ability to count and to grasp the meaning of number, it may not be amiss to
ask ourselves the question, what is the extent of the development of our
own number sense? To what limit can we absorb the idea of number, with a
complete appreciation of the idea of the number of units involved in any
written or spoken quantity? Our perfect system of numeration enables us to
express without difficulty any desired number, no matter how great or how
small it be. But how much of actually clear comprehension does the number
thus expressed convey to the mind? We say that one place is 100 miles from
another; that A paid B 1000 dollars for a certain piece of property; that a
given city contains 10,000 inhabitants; that 100,000 bushels of wheat were
shipped from Duluth or Odessa on such a day; that 1,000,000 feet of lumber
were destroyed by the fire of yesterday,--and as we pass from the smallest
to the largest of the numbers thus instanced, and from the largest on to
those still larger, we repeat the question just asked; and we repeat it
with a new sense of our own mental limitation. The number 100
unquestionably stands for a distinct conception. Perhaps the same may be
said for 1000, though this could not be postulated with equal certainty.
But what of 10,000? If that number of persons were gathered together into a
single hall or amphitheatre, could an estimate be made by the average
onlooker which would approximate with any degree of accuracy the size of
the assembly? Or if an observer were stationed at a certain point, and
10,000 persons were to pass him in single file without his counting them as
they passed, what sort of an estimate would he make of their number? The
truth seems to be that our mental conception of number is much more limited
than is commonly thought, and that we unconsciously adopt some new unit as
a standard of comparison when we wish to render intelligible to our minds
any number of considerable magnitude. For example, we say that A has a
fortune of $1,000,000. The impression is at once conveyed of a considerable
degree of wealth, but it is rather from the fact that that fortune
represents an annual income of $40,000 than, from the actual magnitude of
the fortune itself. The number 1,000,000 is, in itself, so greatly in
excess of anything that enters into our daily experience that we have but a
vague conception of it, except as something very great. We are not, after
all, so very much better off than the child who, with his arms about his
mother's neck, informs her with perfect gravity and sincerity that he
"loves her a million bushels." His idea is merely of some very great
amount, and our own is often but little clearer when we use the expressions
which are so easily represented by a few digits. Among the uneducated
portions of civilized communities the limit of clear comprehension of
number is not only relatively, but absolutely, very low. Travellers in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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