The art of mathematics has proven, over the millennia, to be a practical as well as beautiful pursuit. This has required us to use results from math in our daily lives, and there's one thing that has always been true of humanity: we like to do things as easily as possible. Therefore, some very peculiar and interesting mental connections have been developed for the proliferation of this sort of paramathematical skill. What we're talking about when we say "mental connections"  is the cerebral process of doing arithmetic and algebra. So who invented arithmetic? How are algebra and arithmetic related? And how have they changed over the years? --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/appSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support