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Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes abstract objects, methods, theories
and theorems that are developed and proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics
itself. There are many areas of mathematics, which include number theory (the study of
numbers), algebra (the study of formulas and related structures), geometry (the study of shapes
and spaces that contain them), analysis (the study of continuous changes), and set theory
(presently used as a foundation for all mathematics).

Mathematics involves the description and manipulation of abstract objects that consist of either
abstractions from nature or—in modern mathematics—purely abstract entities that are stipulated
to have certain properties, called axioms. Mathematics uses pure reason to prove properties of
objects, a proof consisting of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already
established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, and—in case of
abstraction from nature—some basic properties that are considered true starting points of the
theory under consideration.[1]

Mathematics is essential in the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, finance, computer

science, and the social sciences. Although mathematics is extensively used for modeling
phenomena, the fundamental truths of mathematics are independent of any scientific
experimentation. Some areas of mathematics, such as statistics and game theory, are developed
in close correlation with their applications and are often grouped under applied mathematics.
Other areas are developed independently from any application (and are therefore called pure
mathematics) but often later find practical applications.[2][3]

Historically, the concept of a proof and its associated mathematical rigour first appeared in
Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclid's Elements.[4] Since its beginning, mathematics was
primarily divided into geometry and arithmetic (the manipulation of natural numbers and
fractions), until the 16th and 17th centuries, when algebra[a] and infinitesimal calculus were
introduced as new fields. Since then, the interaction between mathematical innovations and
scientific discoveries has led to a correlated increase in the development of both.[5] At the end of
the 19th century, the foundational crisis of mathematics led to the systematization of the
axiomatic method,[6] which heralded a dramatic increase in the number of mathematical areas and
their fields of application. The contemporary Mathematics Subject Classification lists more than
sixty first-level areas of mathematics.

Etymology
The word mathematics comes from Ancient Greek máthēma (μάθημα), meaning "that which is
learnt",[7] "what one gets to know", hence also "study" and "science". The word came to have the
narrower and more technical meaning of "mathematical study" even in Classical times.[b] Its
adjective is mathēmatikós (μαθηματικός), meaning "related to learning" or "studious", which
likewise further came to mean "mathematical".[11] In particular, mathēmatikḗ tékhnē (μαθηματικὴ
τέχνη; Latin: ars mathematica) meant "the mathematical art".[7]

Similarly, one of the two main schools of thought in Pythagoreanism was known as the
mathēmatikoi (μαθηματικοί)—which at the time meant "learners" rather than "mathematicians"
in the modern sense. The Pythagoreans were likely the first to constrain the use of the word to
just the study of arithmetic and geometry. By the time of Aristotle (384–322 BC) this meaning
was fully established.[12]
In Latin and English, until around 1700, the term mathematics more commonly meant
"astrology" (or sometimes "astronomy") rather than "mathematics"; the meaning gradually
changed to its present one from about 1500 to 1800. This change has resulted in several
mistranslations: For example, Saint Augustine's warning that Christians should beware of
mathematici, meaning "astrologers", is sometimes mistranslated as a condemnation of
mathematicians.[13]

The apparent plural form in English goes back to the Latin neuter plural mathematica (Cicero),
based on the Greek plural ta mathēmatiká (τὰ μαθηματικά) and means roughly "all things
mathematical", although it is plausible that English borrowed only the adjective mathematic(al)
and formed the noun mathematics anew, after the pattern of physics and metaphysics, inherited
from Greek.[14] In English, the noun mathematics takes a singular verb. It is often shortened to
maths[15] or, in North America, math.[16]

Areas of mathematics
Before the Renaissance, mathematics was divided into two main areas: arithmetic, regarding the
manipulation of numbers, and geometry, regarding the study of shapes.[17] Some types of
pseudoscience, such as numerology and astrology, were not then clearly distinguished from
mathematics.[18]

During the Renaissance, two more areas appeared. Mathematical notation led to algebra which,
roughly speaking, consists of the study and the manipulation of formulas. Calculus, consisting of
the two subfields differential calculus and integral calculus, is the study of continuous functions,
which model the typically nonlinear relationships between varying quantities, as represented by
variables. This division into four main areas–arithmetic, geometry, algebra, calculus [19]–endured
until the end of the 19th century. Areas such as celestial mechanics and solid mechanics were
then studied by mathematicians, but now are considered as belonging to physics.[20] The subject
of combinatorics has been studied for much of recorded history, yet did not become a separate
branch of mathematics until the seventeenth century.[21]

At the end of the 19th century, the foundational crisis in mathematics and the resulting
systematization of the axiomatic method led to an explosion of new areas of mathematics.[22][6]
The 2020 Mathematics Subject Classification contains no less than sixty-three first-level areas.[23]
Some of these areas correspond to the older division, as is true regarding number theory (the
modern name for higher arithmetic) and geometry. Several other first-level areas have
"geometry" in their names or are otherwise commonly considered part of geometry. Algebra and
calculus do not appear as first-level areas but are respectively split into several first-level areas.
Other first-level areas emerged during the 20th century or had not previously been considered as
mathematics, such as mathematical logic and foundations.[24]

Number theory

Main article: Number theory

 This is the Ulam spiral, which illustrates the distribution of
prime numbers. The dark diagonal lines in the spiral hint at the hypothesized approximate
independence between being prime and being a value of a quadratic polynomial, a conjecture
now known as Hardy and Littlewood's Conjecture F.

Number theory began with the manipulation of numbers, that is, natural numbers and

later expanded to integers and rational numbers Number theory was once called
arithmetic, but nowadays this term is mostly used for numerical calculations.[25] Number theory
dates back to ancient Babylon and probably China. Two prominent early number theorists were
Euclid of ancient Greece and Diophantus of Alexandria.[26] The modern study of number theory
in its abstract form is largely attributed to Pierre de Fermat and Leonhard Euler. The field came
to full fruition with the contributions of Adrien-Marie Legendre and Carl Friedrich Gauss.[27]

Many easily stated number problems have solutions that require sophisticated methods, often
from across mathematics. A prominent example is Fermat's Last Theorem. This conjecture was
stated in 1637 by Pierre de Fermat, but it was proved only in 1994 by Andrew Wiles, who used
tools including scheme theory from algebraic geometry, category theory, and homological
algebra.[28] Another example is Goldbach's conjecture, which asserts that every even integer
greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers. Stated in 1742 by Christian Goldbach, it remains
unproven despite considerable effort.[29]

Number theory includes several subareas, including analytic number theory, algebraic number
theory, geometry of numbers (method oriented), diophantine equations, and transcendence
theory (problem oriented).[24]

Geometry

Main article: Geometry

 On the surface of a sphere, Euclidean geometry only applies as
a local approximation. For larger scales the sum of the angles of a triangle is not equal to 180°.

Geometry is one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It started with empirical recipes
concerning shapes, such as lines, angles and circles, which were developed mainly for the needs
of surveying and architecture, but has since blossomed out into many other subfields.[30]

A fundamental innovation was the ancient Greeks' introduction of the concept of proofs, which
require that every assertion must be proved. For example, it is not sufficient to verify by
measurement that, say, two lengths are equal; their equality must be proven via reasoning from
previously accepted results (theorems) and a few basic statements. The basic statements are not
subject to proof because they are self-evident (postulates), or are part of the definition of the
subject of study (axioms). This principle, foundational for all mathematics, was first elaborated
for geometry, and was systematized by Euclid around 300 BC in his book Elements.[31][32]

The resulting Euclidean geometry is the study of shapes and their arrangements constructed from
lines, planes and circles in the Euclidean plane (plane geometry) and the three-dimensional
Euclidean space.[c][30]

Euclidean geometry was developed without change of methods or scope until the 17th century,
when René Descartes introduced what is now called Cartesian coordinates. This constituted a
major change of paradigm: Instead of defining real numbers as lengths of line segments (see
number line), it allowed the representation of points using their coordinates, which are numbers.
Algebra (and later, calculus) can thus be used to solve geometrical problems. Geometry was split
into two new subfields: synthetic geometry, which uses purely geometrical methods, and analytic
geometry, which uses coordinates systemically.[33]

Analytic geometry allows the study of curves unrelated to circles and lines. Such curves can be
defined as the graph of functions, the study of which led to differential geometry. They can also
be defined as implicit equations, often polynomial equations (which spawned algebraic
geometry). Analytic geometry also makes it possible to consider Euclidean spaces of higher than
three dimensions.[30]

In the 19th century, mathematicians discovered non-Euclidean geometries, which do not follow
the parallel postulate. By questioning that postulate's truth, this discovery has been viewed as
joining Russell's paradox in revealing the foundational crisis of mathematics. This aspect of the
crisis was solved by systematizing the axiomatic method, and adopting that the truth of the
chosen axioms is not a mathematical problem.[34][6] In turn, the axiomatic method allows for the
study of various geometries obtained either by changing the axioms or by considering properties
that do not change under specific transformations of the space.[35]

Today's subareas of geometry include:[24]

 Projective geometry, introduced in the 16th century by Girard Desargues, extends

Euclidean geometry by adding points at infinity at which parallel lines intersect. This
simplifies many aspects of classical geometry by unifying the treatments for intersecting
and parallel lines.
 Affine geometry, the study of properties relative to parallelism and independent from the
concept of length.
 Differential geometry, the study of curves, surfaces, and their generalizations, which are
defined using differentiable functions.
 Manifold theory, the study of shapes that are not necessarily embedded in a larger space.
 Riemannian geometry, the study of distance properties in curved spaces.
 Algebraic geometry, the study of curves, surfaces, and their generalizations, which are
defined using polynomials.
 Topology, the study of properties that are kept under continuous deformations.
o Algebraic topology, the use in topology of algebraic methods, mainly
homological algebra.
 Discrete geometry, the study of finite configurations in geometry.
 Convex geometry, the study of convex sets, which takes its importance from its
applications in optimization.
 Complex geometry, the geometry obtained by replacing real numbers with complex
numbers.

Algebra

Main article: Algebra

 The quadratic formula, which concisely expresses the

solutions of all quadratic equations The Rubik's Cube group is

a concrete application of group theory.[36]

Algebra is the art of manipulating equations and formulas. Diophantus (3rd century) and al-
Khwarizmi (9th century) were the two main precursors of algebra.[37][38] Diophantus solved some
equations involving unknown natural numbers by deducing new relations until he obtained the
solution.[39] Al-Khwarizmi introduced systematic methods for transforming equations, such as
moving a term from one side of an equation into the other side.[40] The term algebra is derived
from the Arabic word al-jabr meaning 'the reunion of broken parts' that he used for naming one
of these methods in the title of his main treatise.[41][42]

Algebra became an area in its own right only with François Viète (1540–1603), who introduced
the use of variables for representing unknown or unspecified numbers.[43] Variables allow
mathematicians to describe the operations that have to be done on the numbers represented using
mathematical formulas.[44]

Until the 19th century, algebra consisted mainly of the study of linear equations (presently linear
algebra), and polynomial equations in a single unknown, which were called algebraic equations
(a term still in use, although it may be ambiguous). During the 19th century, mathematicians
began to use variables to represent things other than numbers (such as matrices, modular
integers, and geometric transformations), on which generalizations of arithmetic operations are
often valid.[45] The concept of algebraic structure addresses this, consisting of a set whose
elements are unspecified, of operations acting on the elements of the set, and rules that these
operations must follow. The scope of algebra thus grew to include the study of algebraic
structures. This object of algebra was called modern algebra or abstract algebra, as established
by the influence and works of Emmy Noether.[46]

Some types of algebraic structures have useful and often fundamental properties, in many areas
of mathematics. Their study became autonomous parts of algebra, and include:[24]

 group theory;
  field theory;
 vector spaces, whose study is essentially the same as linear algebra;
 ring theory;
 commutative algebra, which is the study of commutative rings, includes the study of
polynomials, and is a foundational part of algebraic geometry;
 homological algebra;
 Lie algebra and Lie group theory;
 Boolean algebra, which is widely used for the study of the logical structure of computers.

The study of types of algebraic structures as mathematical objects is the purpose of universal
algebra and category theory.[47] The latter applies to every mathematical structure (not only
algebraic ones). At its origin, it was introduced, together with homological algebra for allowing
the algebraic study of non-algebraic objects such as topological spaces; this particular area of
application is called algebraic topology.[48]

Calculus and analysis

Main articles: Calculus and Mathematical analysis

A Cauchy sequence consists of elements such that all

subsequent terms of a term become arbitrarily close to each other as the sequence progresses
(from left to right).

Calculus, formerly called infinitesimal calculus, was introduced independently and

simultaneously by 17th-century mathematicians Newton and Leibniz.[49] It is fundamentally the
study of the relationship of variables that depend on each other. Calculus was expanded in the
18th century by Euler with the introduction of the concept of a function and many other results.
[50]
Presently, "calculus" refers mainly to the elementary part of this theory, and "analysis" is
commonly used for advanced parts.[51]

Analysis is further subdivided into real analysis, where variables represent real numbers, and
complex analysis, where variables represent complex numbers. Analysis includes many subareas
shared by other areas of mathematics which include:[24]

 Multivariable calculus
 Functional analysis, where variables represent varying functions;
 Integration, measure theory and potential theory, all strongly related with probability
theory on a continuum;
 Ordinary differential equations;
 Partial differential equations;
  Numerical analysis, mainly devoted to the computation on computers of solutions of
ordinary and partial differential equations that arise in many applications.

Discrete mathematics

Main article: Discrete mathematics

A diagram representing a two-state Markov chain. The states

are represented by 'A' and 'E'. The numbers are the probability of flipping the state.

Discrete mathematics, broadly speaking, is the study of individual, countable mathematical

objects. An example is the set of all integers.[52] Because the objects of study here are discrete,
the methods of calculus and mathematical analysis do not directly apply.[d] Algorithms—
especially their implementation and computational complexity—play a major role in discrete
mathematics.[53]

The four color theorem and optimal sphere packing were two major problems of discrete
mathematics solved in the second half of the 20th century.[54] The P versus NP problem, which
remains open to this day, is also important for discrete mathematics, since its solution would
potentially impact a large number of computationally difficult problems.[55]

Discrete mathematics includes:[24]

 Combinatorics, the art of enumerating mathematical objects that satisfy some given
constraints. Originally, these objects were elements or subsets of a given set; this has
been extended to various objects, which establishes a strong link between combinatorics
and other parts of discrete mathematics. For example, discrete geometry includes
counting configurations of geometric shapes
 Graph theory and hypergraphs
 Coding theory, including error correcting codes and a part of cryptography
 Matroid theory
 Discrete geometry
 Discrete probability distributions
 Game theory (although continuous games are also studied, most common games, such as
chess and poker are discrete)
  Discrete optimization, including combinatorial optimization, integer programming,
constraint programming

Mathematical logic and set theory

Main articles: Mathematical logic and Set theory

The Venn diagram is a commonly used method to illustrate the

relations between sets.

The two subjects of mathematical logic and set theory have belonged to mathematics since the
end of the 19th century.[56][57] Before this period, sets were not considered to be mathematical
objects, and logic, although used for mathematical proofs, belonged to philosophy and was not
specifically studied by mathematicians.[58]

Before Cantor's study of infinite sets, mathematicians were reluctant to consider actually infinite
collections, and considered infinity to be the result of endless enumeration. Cantor's work
offended many mathematicians not only by considering actually infinite sets[59] but by showing
that this implies different sizes of infinity, per Cantor's diagonal argument. This led to the
controversy over Cantor's set theory.[60] In the same period, various areas of mathematics
concluded the former intuitive definitions of the basic mathematical objects were insufficient for
ensuring mathematical rigour.[61]