10 Basic Mathematical Terms: A Student Should Know

10 Basic Mathematical Terms: A Student Should Know

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Maths is present everywhere, from our houses to the offices, and we use it for different purposes for example, to make recipes, driverless cars, advance bridges construction, technological inventions etc.

Without mathematics, we can not imagine our lives and development.

Often, students get confused in terms of mathematics or find it difficult to learn all the mathematical terms.

Are you one who does not know about the basic terms of mathematics or finds it challenging to understand them?

If yes, we will solve your problem or provide you with 10 basic mathematics terms, and we will explain to you with the help of examples.

Mathematics is used in the different spheres of our lives with different concepts and formulas. For example, in the kitchen, we use the concepts of ratio and proportion; in robotics or advanced inventions, we use complex mathematical concepts and theorems such as probability, algebra, calculus, derivatives, integrals, and theorems etc.

In this blog, we are going to tell you 10 basic random terms of mathematics that a student should know.

10 basic Mathematical terms

Integers

Integers are defined as any number, even odd, fractional, non-fractional, negative numbers. It also includes 0, or we can say that all the whole numbers, non-fractional and fractional numbers, negative numbers can be considered as integers. For example, -1, -5, 0, 2, 5.6, 8 all are integers.

Whole Numbers

Whole numbers are the natural numbers, including 0. These are the basic counting numbers such as 0, 1, 2, 3, 555, 999, 123546798. All these numbers are examples of whole numbers. Fractional numbers and negative numbers do not fall under whole numbers.

Mean 

Mean is defined as the average, and it is a mathematical term that is used commonly in statistics. It is calculated by adding all the data set numbers and dividing the total sum of those numbers by the total number of terms.

Mean= sum of all terms/ total terms

For example, we have to determine the mean for values 4, 8, 4, 7, 9

For that, we need to add all the given numbers, and the sum will be 32

We have total terms 5; now, we need to divide 32 by 5 to calculate the mean.

Mean = 32/5 =6.4

Median

Median is the number in a number list that comes in the middle. If the numbers in the numbers list are odd, we consider the middle term as the median. For example, we have values 3, 5, 2, 7, 9; in this case, 2 is the middle term and is referred to as median.

But for an even number of values such as 2, 4, 3, 7, 8, 1?

In this case, we can say that there is no middle term or we have two middle terms. We will take two middle terms and calculate their mean; this means will be the median for this list.

Two middle terms are 3 and 7

Mean= 10/2=5; hence 5 is the median.

Mode

When a number is coming repetitively in a number list, it will become a mode in that list.

For instance, for the values 4, 6, 5, 3, 8, 6, 2, 9

Here 6 comes two times; hence it is the mode.

Rational numbers

The numbers that can be written in the form of p/q and the value of q should not be 0. 2/5, 1/2, 0/1 are examples of rational numbers. 0 is also a rational number because we can write it in the form of p/q such as 0/2, 0/5, 0/1 etc.

Irrational Numbers

Any number which can not be expressed in ratio and fraction is known as an irrational number. These are the real numbers that can not be written in a simple fraction, such as √2, √5, √11 etc. Pi is also an irrational number.

Infinite

Infinite represents the series of endless numbers or a list of numbers without bounds. For example, continuous number sequences 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,………… can be infinite as we have not given a final term or last number.

Factors

When we break the mathematical product into two or more numbers, the values we get after breaking the product are known as factors.

Suppose we have an equation x^2+8x+16=0 and we have to determine the roots of this equation, we need to do the factors of this equation as below.

x^2+8x+16=0

x^2+4x+4x+16=0

x(x+4)+4(x+4)=0

(x+4) and (x+4) are the factors of this equation.

Let’s understand it with simple examples.

2 and 3 are the factors of 6

3 and 3 are the factors of 9.

Even and Odd numbers

These terms are very basic mathematical terms that are used in the number system and we start to learn about these numbers in our elementary years.

Here even numbers are the numbers that can be divided by 2 or the odd numbers are the numbers that can not be divided by 2.

For example- 6 is an even number because we can divide it by 2, 9 is an odd number because we can not divide it by 2.

Conclusion

In this blog, we tried to cover some basic mathematical terms with their examples so that you can understand these terms without any difficulty. I hope you get all these terms with a better explanation.

The terms of mathematics are endless as we have mathematical terms regarding different chapters and study areas. We have a list of different math terms according to the different concepts such as algebraic terms, probability terms, calculus terms, geometry terms, trigonometry terms, arithmetics terms.

Hence all the study areas of mathematics have their own mathematical terms which are almost impossible to cover in this blog. However we have given you the 10 basic terms of mathematics that a student should know.

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