"Ahmes used the term "fraction" in a restricted sense, for he applied it only to unit-fractions, or fractions having unity for the numerator. It was designated by writing the denominator and then placing over it a dot. Fractional values which could not be expressed by any one unit-fraction were expressed as the sum of two or more of them. ...The first important problem naturally arising was, how to represent any fractional value as the sum of unit-fractions. This was solved by aid of a table, given in the [Rhind] papyrus, in which all fractions of the form 2/(2n+1) (where n designates successively all the numbers up to 49) are reduced to the sum of unit fractions."
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_History_of_Mathematics
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A History of Mathematics
A History of Mathematics by Florian Cajori was the first popular history of mathematics written in the United States. It was published in 1893.
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