Numbers Evolved from Counting to Infinity and Beyond

Numbers were invented by early humans to count and track things like animals killed in a hunt or days passed. Over time, larger numbers were needed to count livestock, trade goods, etc.

The ancient Greeks realized numbers could explain things beyond just counting, but they lacked the concept of zero to write large numbers. Zero was invented in India and later brought to Europe.

Numbers are designed to continue endlessly - if there was a maximum, new discoveries would exceed it. There are some exceptions like clock arithmetic.

Mathematicians define numbers to continue infinitely based on two rules 0 is the starting number, and adding 1 to any number produces a new number.

Negative numbers were created to address issues with subtraction. By imagining numbers on a line with a mirror at 0, negative numbers are reflections of positive numbers. So negatives also continue endlessly.