A very long time ago in Mesopotamia, a few hundreds of people lived together in the village of Badaks. Badaks were very hard-working people, and they were among the first farmer communities. Their lives depended on two things more than anything: Their farms and sheep.
There was a lot of sheep in the village of Badaks. Thanks to them, people of Badaks were able to protect themselves from cold weather. Their milk and meat were also important to Badaks as food sources. Because of their importance, the person in charge of the sheep had to be wise and trustworthy.
Zaylin, head of Badaks, was in charge of this crucial duty.
Every day, with the first sunlight, Zaylin took the sheep out of their pens for them to explore the hills and graze the green grass of the village of Badaks. Before the sun is gone, Zaylin had to gather the sheep and be sure that every sheep returned to the pens.
Even though Badaks were one of the most progressive communities of their time, they didn’t know the use of numbers like the rest of humanity.
At this point, Zaylin had a bit of a problem: How did he know that he returned with the same number of sheep as left in the morning? Don’t get me wrong; Zaylin was an intelligent person for his time. But like everybody else, he didn’t know how to count.
One wonders…
Put yourself in Zaylin’s shoes: Is it possible to detect if you lost any sheep or not when you finish a day without counting or any use of numbers?
M. Serkan Kalaycıoğlu
kmatematikatolyesi.com 