The Rhind ( Ahmes ) papyrus is a papyrus 6 meters long and 35 cm wide . B . C . Written in the 1850s , this papyrus is actually a book written with the aim of teaching mathematics . In the introduction , after a few exercises to teach operations with fractional numbers , 87 questions with their solutions are given . These are the kinds of questions people may encounter in everyday life , such as sharing calculations , interest calculations , or finding the area of some geometric shapes .