Numbers

The ancient Egyptians were possibly the first civilisation to practice the scientific arts. Indeed, the word chemistry is derived from the word Alchemy which is the ancient name for Egypt.Where the Egyptians really excelled was in medicine and applied mathematics. But although there is a large body of papyrus literature describing their achievements in medicine, there is no records of how they reached their mathematical conclusions. Of course they must have had an advanced understanding of the subject because their exploits in engineering, astronomy and administration would not have been possible without it.

The Egyptians had a decimal system using seven different symbols.1 is shown by a single stroke.10 is shown by a drawing of a hobble for cattle.100 is represented by a coil of rope.1,000 is a drawing of a lotus plant.10,000 is represented by a finger.100,000 by a tadpole or frog1,000,000 is the figure of a god with arms raised above his head.

Solids

A polyhedron is said to be regular if its faces are congruent regular polygons and if its polyhedral angles are all congruent. There is the tetrahedron with four triangular faces, the hexahedron, or cube, with six square faces, the octahedron with eight triangular faces, the dodecahedron with twelve pentagonal faces, and the icosahedron with twenty triangular faces. Plato mystically associates fire, earth, air, universe, and water to each regular solid.