We men, we are naturally curious and that curiosity is awakened by the need to adapt to the environment around us.
This is one of the main reasons that led the man to take his steps in the count, but .. What were the main needs which led the person to have:
1. Adapting to the environment.
2. Protect your assets. (need to count)
3. To distinguish the cycles of nature (the need to feed).
At first, knowledge of the numbers by men was reduced to a very small enough that primitive societies are counted one, two, many. "many" say three in Latin, meaning that its code was only to the number three, this was about four thousand years ago.
The oldest was finger counting. But how to record the result?
Well what they did was score big numbers throwing chips in a bag, but then realized that a simple enough marks engraved on a tablet.
The Babylonians used different shape marks to designate large numbers. Various symbols placed in different positions were sufficient to represent larger numbers.
As for the origin of zero still remains obscure. Surely there in the sixth century Hindu text which takes the form of a point. In Greek astronomical writings, zero is represented by the initial letter or omdem Greek word "nothing".
The current form of our figures, our decimal system, comes as the West India, via the Arabs. But not until the thirteenth century that entered Italy, adopted by the merchants of Florence. Its use did not become widespread until the sixteenth century.
As you can see, mankind has invested several thousands of years to domesticate the number, and science has become what it is after a few centuries.
The math has not been done in a day and, moreover, his childhood is just away from us. What is so strange then, because men have taken so long to represent numbers and operations, that a student would find some difficulties in this area?.
Finally, I hope this article on the origin of the numbers you a clarity around the process that had to be met for the mathematics of today, whatever they are today, so I advise students quiet when trying to understand complex issues of mathematics, which must be made in logical steps of human understanding.