Repost: Article 3 The Crest of the Peacock

 The article highlights the extent to which the history of math recognition is misrepresented as their were many political, economic, and relational factors that influence the spread of information. One things that surprised me was the extent to which the Arabs helped propagate information in the post-Alexandria era. For example, there were many caliphs that Indians and Chinese came to to translate their works. As a result, resources could be more easily distributed in Europe as a result of the Arabs connections and ability to translate. The article mentioned that the Arabs in some way saved the Greeks which is fascinating.

 

The second thing I found interesting was the constant reference to the Egyptians. It seems that they are not given the credit they merit. For example, the Greeks actually developed a lot of their mathematics from the Egyptians.  One example of this is how Pythagoras’ teacher (who was also Greek) spent years learning under the Egyptians and even travelling as far as India to learn.

 

Lastly, it’s not shocking that India make some huge contributions to the mathematical world as I know that the Indians also were key in developing games like chess which are mathematical in nature. What did surprise me was that the relationship between the Chinese and Indians – two vastly distinct civilizations. In fact, the Chinese translated Indian works on astronmy, mathematics, and medicine. They even went as far as to hire Indian astronomers onto their board to teach the method of kuttaka – a method to solve  indeterminate equations. Fascinating.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Homework September 18: Babylonian word problems and factors

Image
  Unquestionably, the structure of the word problems from the Babylonian era does mirror the ones we have today. While they attempt to apply to the real world, one would argue that some of the problems are more hypothetical in nature. One of the points that stood out to me, was that the Babylonian problems were labelled as “practical”, yet many of the problems extended beyond the nature of a habitual task that the Babylonians or other civlizations would partake in. For example, a grain pile of 36-48 cubits (18-24 m) high is difficult to imagine let alone actually create.   Moreover, I found it highly interesting that the Babylonians would compromise precision for solutions that were more appealing. For example, when solving right-angled triangles and trying to find the length of one of the legs or the diagonal, they would opt for the integer answer so as to avoid fractions. Perhaps, it was due to the literacy of other people and keeping it in integers would make it easier to...
Read more

Sept 16: Discrepancies of time

  One thing that stood out to me   was that the st. andrews article mentioned that the sexagesimal system when using decimals has 3 prime factors to 60 (2, 3, and 5) which when expressed as a decimal   will be finite if the denominator has no prime divisors other than 2, 3, and 5. Therefore, in terms of time, this would be more convenient if we needed to write a fraction of time or it’s decimal as there would be more possibilities than if we had denoted an hour as 100. I too find it interesting that some theories suggest a base 60 system based on astronomical events such as the number of planets multiplied by the number of months in the year . One of the major inconsistencies between the two articles was that the sun moves through its diameter 720 times during a day and with 12 Sumerian hours per day, we obtain 60 as a result of 720/12. However, the concept   of fixed hours in a day did not exist supposedly as mentioned in the scientific American article. The divis...
Read more

Article response 1: Why we teach math history

  I think that there are elements of Math history that should be introduced into the classroom. For example, I believe it was the Greeks that invented the base 10 system and they also played a role in terms of how we operate our multiplication today. So many students can “game” the educational system today simply by memorizing concepts, formulas, or processes in order to attain a high grade. However, I think we should emphasize more on the process than the product and helping students to understand why they are making certain decisions in solving a problem. Incorporating elements of math history is essential to expand students understanding of basic mathematics such as arithmetic. Moreover, having an understanding of some of the proofs such as Euclid proofs can help build problem solving skills while also reinforcing learning in current mathematics. In fact, I believe there are ancient proofs that show a prior understanding of proof by induction, of course this is a concept taught ...
Read more