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Mathematics in The Ancient World

Mathematics has a long history dating back to prehistoric times when simple arithmetic was used. Major developments occurred in ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome where concepts like geometry, algebra and calculus began to emerge. Great mathematicians from these eras include Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes and Hypatia. In the medieval era, mathematics advanced further in places like India and the Arab world with mathematicians such as Aryabhata. In Europe, figures like Fibonacci and Napier made important contributions, developing concepts like logarithms. The 17th century saw many innovations that helped establish modern mathematics, with mathematicians such as Descartes, Pascal,

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193 views

Mathematics in The Ancient World

Mathematics has a long history dating back to prehistoric times when simple arithmetic was used. Major developments occurred in ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome where concepts like geometry, algebra and calculus began to emerge. Great mathematicians from these eras include Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes and Hypatia. In the medieval era, mathematics advanced further in places like India and the Arab world with mathematicians such as Aryabhata. In Europe, figures like Fibonacci and Napier made important contributions, developing concepts like logarithms. The 17th century saw many innovations that helped establish modern mathematics, with mathematicians such as Descartes, Pascal,

Uploaded by

Joed Fernandez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Mathematics in the Ancient World

Prehistoric people must have used simple arithmetic. However when people became civilized
mathematics became far more important. Proper record keeping was essential. In Iraq a people
called the Sumerians counted in sets of 60. We still divide hours into 60 minutes and minutes into
60 seconds. We also divide circles into 360 degrees.

The Egyptians had some knowledge of practical geometry which they used to build the pyramids.
However the Greeks were interested in ideas for their own sake. Around 600 BC a Greek called
Thales calculated the height of a pyramid by measuring its statue. But the most famous Greek
mathematician was Pythagoras. (c. 570-495 BC). Pythagoras is famous for his theorem The
square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.

Theano of Crotona was a great woman mathematician. Euclid (325-265 BC) is most famous for
his book about geometry Elements. A man named Eratosthenes (c.276-194 BC) calculated the
circumference of the Earth. Archimedes (287-212 BC) worked out formulas for the area of shapes
and the volumes of solids. The last great mathematician of the Ancient World was a woman
named Hypatia (died 415 AD).

Roman numerals consisted of I meaning one, X meaning ten, L meaning fifty and C meaning 100.
They had no symbol meaning zero. However the Indians invented a symbol for zero and the
numerals we now use were invented by them. They were later used by the Arabs and were first
used in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Mathematics 500-1800

There were a number of great Indian mathematicians during this era. Among them were
Aryabhata (c. 476-550) and Brahmagupta (c 598-670). A Persian named Al-Khwarizmi was also
a famous mathematician. He lived in the early 9th century. He wrote about Indian numerals and
algebra.

In Europe An Italian called Fibonacci (c 1175-1250) was a great mathematician of the Middle
Ages. He discovered the Fibonacci series of numbers. (Each number is equal to the sum of the
previous two numbers 1, 1, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.) In 1489 a German named Johannes Widmann
invented the + sign for plus and the - sign for minus. The = sign for equals was invented by a
Welshman called Robert Recorde in 1557.

During the 17th century mathematics made rapid progress. A Scot named John Napier (1550-
1617) invented logarithms. Englishman William Oughtred (1575-1660) invented the slide rule. He
also began using the symbol X for multiplication. John Graunt (1620-1674) was the first man to
study statistics. Meanwhile, a Frenchman named Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) studied probability.
Renes Descartes (1596-1650) invented the Cartesian coordinate system with x and y axes.
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) invented calculus. One of the greatest mathematicians of the 18th
century was Leonhard Euler (1707-1783). Euler made many discoveries and he wrote hundreds
of books on mathematics. Another great mathematician was Maria Agnesi.

Modern Mathematics

In the 19th century Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) made contributions to algebra, geometry
and probability. Charles Babbage (1791-1871) is called the father of the computer because he
designed a mechanical calculating machine he called an analytical engine (although it wasn't
actually built in his lifetime). Babbage was assisted by another great mathematician called Ada
Lovelace (1815-1852). George Boole (1815-1864) created Boolean algebra. Meanwhile in 1801
William Playfair (1759-1823) invented the pie chart. (Florence Nightingale did not invent the pie
chart although she did use them). John Venn (1834-1923) invented the Venn diagram.

One of the most famous mathematicians of the 20th century was Alan Turing (1912-1954). He is
famous for the Turing test, which states that a computer can be considered intelligent if a human
being communicating with it cannot tell it is a computer. In the late 20th century computers
became very useful to mathematicians.

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