Then man thought about numbers between 0 and 1. To give us fractions and decimals.…
Maria Ascher's *Mathematics Elsewhere,* identifies mathematical ideas that are present all over the world, and is "intended as another step toward a global and humanistic history of mathematics." (Ascher IV) This important volume clarifies how many universal mathematical concepts, both simple and complex, are used and understood by countless cultures worldwide, regardless of differences in geography, language, and era. By studying and widening the scope of the history and breadth of mathematical thought, Ascher argues that "we are supplying complexity and texture... [and] in short, enlarging our understanding of the variety of human expressions and human usages associated with the same basic ideas." (2)…
Smith, D. E. (1951). History of Mathematics: General Survey of the History of Elementary Mathematics (Vol. 1). New York: Dover Publications.…
At one point, the Greeks strongly believed that the numeral one was a unit not a number. Mathematics has evolved on a large scale to suit our lives today. Mathematics has also branched out to different sub-sections such as calculus, geometry, trigonometry and algebra. Who was Pythagoras?…
In this time, “Europe was in deep slumber” (crest of the peacock). The transference of this knowledge to European colonies resulted in the production of some of the most influential mathematical knowledge. From a political point of view, mathematical knowledge can be considered as power. The mathematisation of modern life and society has been growing exponentially, so much so that the majority of human movements are conceptualised and controlled numerically. A strong education system has become the key to the quantified thought processes that are required in modern citizens.…
Some may say mathematics aren’t all that important. There are actually thousands of different jobs that require some knowledge of mathematics. Without mathematics you wouldn’t that there is a big difference between $100 and $1,000. Although mathematics is used in everyday life, some may say creating games was way more important than anything. For others, the creation of games may be more important because that may be all they do, all day long. While that may be true, in someone else’s opinion math helped change the world for the better. Why for the better? Because math has brightened the future. A thousand years before Europeans made significant advances in the field, scholars in Muslim civilization were creating new mathematical…
circa 5,000 B.C.: The Egyptians use a decimal number system, a precursor to modern number systems which are also based on the number 10. The Ancient Egyptians also made use of a multiplication system that relied on successive doublings and additions in order to find the products of relatively large numbers. For example, 176 x 313 might be calculated by first finding the double of 313 (313 x 2 = 626), then finding the double of that number (313 x 4 = 1252), the double of that number (313 x 8 = 2,504) and so on (313 x 16 = 5,008; 313 x 32 = 10,016; 313 x 64…
Over time the Egyptians came up with another form of numbers. These numbers were called “hieratic numerals”. These numerals were much more detailed, but more memorization was needed to remember all the symbols.…
Numbers like the alphabet, not found in nature, have been an invention of man as a need to understand each other, to progress, for evolution and survival. Humans, as we know, were born with the innate ability to create a language to express the abstract aspects that we have formed of the things around us and their…
Mayan Mathematics In our modern world, one can argue that mathematics is a universal language. Numbers have been recorded in various forms throughout time. For example, the Babylonians used marks pressed in clay; the Egyptians used papyrus ink brushes to create tally marks; and the Maya introduced a symbol for zero. All these ancient peoples used numerals or written symbols to express what they meant mathematically.…
To begin civilization in a meaningful way, we had to be able to communicate ideas from one person to another. We can show this happened for a long period of time; however, we can appreciate a dramatic improvement in culture and society with the ability to record ideas. Not only expressive with words and events, but now mathematics as well. People are now able to look at and solve practical math problems significantly. I have learned that most of early mathematics began in a practical sense; to figure out heights, lengths, area, perimeters, volumes, and various other simple problems. As nations became more stable, scholars were able to study and learn more difficult abstract formulas based on theory. Also basic equations were looked at…
Aryabhatta is the first of the great astronomers of the classical age of India. He was born in Kerala, South India in 476 AD but later lived in Kusumapura, which his commentator Bhaskara I (629 AD) identifies with pataliputra (modern Patna) in Bihar. His first name “Arya” is hardly a south Indian name while “Bhatt” (or Bhatta) is a typical north Indian name even found today specially among the trader community.…
Aryabhata (IAST: Āryabhaṭa; Sanskrit: आर्यभटः) (476–550 CE) was the first in the line of great mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. His most famous works are the Aryabhatiya (499 CE, when he was 23 years old) and the Arya-siddhanta.…
Āryabhaṭa (Devanāgarī: आर्यभट) (AD 476 – 550) is the first of the great mathematician-astronomers of the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. He was born at Muziris (the modern day Kodungallour village) near Thrissur, Kerala. Available evidence suggest that he went to Kusumapura for higher studies. He lived in Kusumapura, which his commentator Bhāskara I (AD 629) identifies as Pataliputra (modern Patna). K. Chandra Hari, a senior geoscientist at the Institute of Reservoir Studies of Oil and Natural Gas Commission, Ahmedabad has refuted this popular opinion and claims that based on his interpretation of Aryabhatta's system of measurements and writings, it is highly likely that he belonged to the modern Ponnani-Chamravattom area (latitude 10N51 and longitude 75E45) in Kerala in the 6th Century AD…
While there is a tendency to misspell his name as "Aryabhatta" by analogy with other names having the "bhatta" suffix, his name is properly spelled Aryabhata: every astronomical text spells his name thus, including Brahmagupta's references to him "in more than a hundred places by name". Furthermore, in most instances "Aryabhatta" does not fit the metre either.…