MONEY

Money has had a long journey through human societies. It has gone through barter deals and the exchange of goods, metal coins, copper coins, gold and silver coins, paper notes, debit and credit cards, before transforming into something we call electronic money.

Today, we live in societies in which money is almost invisible. It has a discreet but powerful electronic presence.

But what is money?

I am sure we all know the answer to this question and, even more, that we all have some kind of connection with money itself or with the idea of money.

Writing about money can take many different directions. In this text, we will look at the historical development of money, how money is used in mathematics, and the influence of money on our lives.

Money is best described as a medium of exchange. The concept of money has been around since the dawn of human civilisation. Money allows individuals to trade what they have for what they need or want.

What has been considered money has varied throughout the ages and has included many different items. Currently, there are over 150 currencies used worldwide. Seventy per cent of the world's monetary value is denominated in the U.S. dollar, the euro, the U.K. pound, the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan.

Money has been part of human history for almost 3,000 years. From the origins of bartering to modern money, this is how the system has evolved.

At the dawn of humanity, bartering was used instead of money to obtain goods. One of the earliest forms of barter included cattle, sheep, vegetables and grain.

The first known currency was created by King Alyattes in Lydia, now part of modern-day Turkey, around 600 BC. The first coin ever minted featured a roaring lion. Coins later evolved into banknotes around AD 1661. The first credit card was introduced in 1946.

Money is a means of exchanging wealth indirectly, rather than directly through barter. It is a mechanism that facilitates this process. Money may take a physical form, such as coins and banknotes, or it may exist as an electronic or written record.

Electronic money is currency that is stored in banking computer systems. Various companies allow transactions to be made using electronic money.

The invention of money took place before the beginning of recorded history. There is evidence that many items were bartered in ancient markets that could be described as media of exchange. These included livestock and grain—things that were directly useful in their own right—as well as attractive objects such as cowrie shells or beads, which were exchanged for more useful goods or services.

Such exchanges are better described as barter than as money.

Ancient civilisations developed in different places, often far away from one another, and this early development involved economic systems that existed before written history.

That is why it is not easy to determine with complete accuracy when the transition from barter systems to monetary systems took place. There are many hypotheses and theories about how this transition happened.

However, it dates back to the beginning of human civilisation. The use of barter-like methods may go back at least 100,000 years. Economists call this type of economy a gift economy.

Bronze and copper cowrie imitations were manufactured in China at the end of the Stone Age and could be considered some of the earliest forms of metal coins.

The first silver coins developed from lumps of silver. They soon took the familiar round shape of today's coins and were stamped with images of various gods and emperors to mark their authenticity. These early coins first appeared in Lydia.

The first known paper banknotes appeared in China.

Gold was officially made the standard of value in England in 1816. Banknotes had been used in England and Europe for several hundred years before that, but their value had never been tied directly to gold. In the United States, the Gold Standard Act was officially enacted in 1900, helping to establish a central bank.

The Great Depression of the 1930s, which was felt worldwide, marked the beginning of the end of the gold standard. Today, currency continues to change and develop.

In our digital age, economic transactions regularly take place electronically, without the exchange of any physical currency, and this trend will most likely continue in the future.

How is money used in mathematics?

Basically, money is related to numbers, and so is mathematics.

In mathematics, you use basic arithmetic skills: counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We calculate percentages of amounts, which can be part of financial operations. We work with fractions of amounts, and we use decimal numbers when dealing with money. Money is exchanged using similar operations.

In business, you calculate profit, loss and revenue, and all of these are found using basic mathematical operations. You calculate the total amount of money in your pocket simply by adding the values of the notes and coins. That is mathematics.

Mathematics can help educate people about financial literacy. Learning about budgeting, saving, investing and making basic financial decisions can improve people's confidence when dealing with financial institutions.

This financial education could begin with the subject of money, which is already familiar to students. Real-life contexts can help students learn a wide range of mathematical concepts and numeracy skills, such as lending and borrowing, and calculating interest rates.

Money is not only about shopping but also about helping people become the heroes of their own invention in a much broader context than simply buying things.

Mathematics will be much more successful in the classroom if it is not associated only with worksheets but also connected with real-life situations.

In that way, mathematics gains social relevance and a more human face because it plays such a significant role in people's daily lives.

Here are some activities for you:

Activity 1: Can you find ten interesting sayings, proverbs and idioms in your own language with the main word being money? Can you try to translate them into English to see whether they keep the word money or lose it because of the broader meaning they develop after translation?

Activity 2: Can you research the types of money used in the country you come from? Can you compare your findings with the tradition of using different types of money in this country?

Let us ask ourselves one more time: What is money?

Is it something that everybody dreams of? I do not think so.

Is it something we learn about from an early age and are taught that the more money we have, the happier we will be? Probably yes. We learn about the power of money when we are old enough.

Unfortunately, we are sometimes taught the wrong idea—that money is everything and that we should do our best to get more of it.

But we can agree that money is a subject on which everybody has their own opinion. Those opinions can be quite controversial.

It is true, and we cannot deny the fact, that people need money to live in the society they have created.

Is there any money in the animal world? I do not think so. Animals are free from this concern because they live in a way that seems much simpler to us.

Animals do not produce anything. They are too busy living their lives. Their main concern is how and where to find food to survive and how to find a partner to reproduce in the spring. And that is it.

The rest of the time they simply wander around, unless they are trapped by humans.

If it were not for humans, animals would live much happier lives, and nothing would disturb them. They would simply follow nature's laws.

Birds, for example, would spend the whole day singing beautifully, trying to connect with the Creator in the most peaceful way.

But no, this is not enough for humans. We want to control everything.

We are guilty of constantly destroying the home of animals and nature itself. We try to organise, shape and change nature in ways that please only humans.

By changing nature, we change animals' lives as well, and most of the time for the worse.

Very often, we do not consider animals at all.

Where is the connection with money, you may ask, trying to change the subject.

The connection with money is obvious.

We sell animals to one another for money. We do not ask them for permission to kill them or to sell parts of their bodies.

Money can make people greedy and guilty.

What about humans?

We consider ourselves more intelligent than animals, yet for centuries we have allowed so many crimes to happen in the name of the precious metal.

We have allowed ourselves to become greedy, shallow consumers who rarely think about their inner development.

Do not get me wrong.

We need money. Of course we do.

We need it for food, a roof over our heads, education, travel, healthcare and many other noble purposes, including helping vulnerable people who, for different reasons, cannot even afford food.

It is such a shame that because of something as simple as money, some people live in such poverty that they do not even have enough to eat.

There should be enough money for everybody in this human world.

How do we get money?

We work for it.

And here is the trouble with money. It is in our hearts and minds. If we work only for money, that will be the saddest kind of life.

We recognise the power of money, but we also recognise that the greater part of us wants to ignore its material presence so that it does not influence the way we see the world.

Our concern should always be to develop ourselves and to live our lives in a way that surrounds us with everything that inspires and helps us grow.

There are many other things that are much more important. They are different for each of us.

But what we should never do is identify ourselves with the amount of money we earn as a salary. We are much more than that.

Looking back through history, we can see that so many murders have happened because of money. Or perhaps not exactly because of money, but because of a lack of self-control and a lack of higher values to guide people.

The control is in our hands.

What we need to remember is that money itself is nothing, and it can have only as much power and influence over us as we allow it to have.

Wealth has many directions and dimensions, and money is just one of the measures that indicates how wealthy we are.

The others, equally important, are our health, education, level of intelligence, humanity, kindness, self-respect, likeability, charm, values and talents.

Can we imagine a society without money?

In a spiritual sense, when we share our human presence with one another, we obviously do not need money.

We should never allow the amount of money some people possess to change our opinion of them.

Good is good and wrong is wrong. It does not matter how much money you have. If you are a bully, you are not a friend of mine.

Money should never be able to buy innocence, but only honest behaviour and a respectful attitude towards others.

Money cannot make you a hero in other people's eyes. Only you—your talents, dignity, pride, courage and honest philosophy of life—can do that.

Our importance does not depend on money.

There are so many aspects related to the subject of money that we could talk about it for a very long time.

I hope I have made you think a little about all this.

I will be very happy if I have.

(E. S. Lyubenova; LoveMaths Story for My Students)