History of mathematics

The area of study

•The area of study known as the history of

  mathematics is an investigation into the

  standard mathematical methods and notation of the past.

•Greek and Hellenistic mathematics is generally considered to be one of the most important for greatly expanding both the method and the subject matter of mathematics. 

Earliest known mathematics

•The earliest known mathematics in ancient India dates from 3000-2600 BC in the Indus Valley Civilization of  North India and Pakistan

• •They used the decimal system, ratios, angles, π, and used a base 8 numeral system

•  •The Indus script has not yet been deciphered

Mesopotamia

•Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the people of Mesopotamia until the beginning of the Hellenistic period.

• •The earliest evidence of written mathematics dates back to the ancient Sumerians.

•Babylonian mathematics were written using a sexagesimal (base-60)n numeral system. 

Egypt

•Egyptian mathematics refers to mathematics written in the Egyptian language.

• •The oldest mathematical text discovered so far is the Moscow papyrus, which is an Egyptian Middle Kingdom papyrus dated c. 2000—1800 BC. 

•The Rhind papyrus (c. 1650 BC) is another major Egyptian mathematical text, an instruction manual in arithmetic and geometry.

• •Finally, the Berlin papyrus (c. 1300 BC) shows that ancient Egyptians could solve a second-order algebraic equation. 

Women in Egypt?

•Hypatia was the daughter of Theon of Alexandria who was a teacher of mathematics with the Museum of Alexandria in Egypt.

• •Hypatia corresponded with and hosted scholars from others cities.

•Christian bishop, Cyril, a future saint probably objected to Hypatia on a number of counts

•Vedic mathematics began in the early Iron Age, with the Shatapatha Brahmana (c. 9th century BC)

•Sulba Sutras (c. 800-500 BC) were geometry texts that used irrational numbers and prime numbers

•Developed Pythagorean triples algebraically and gave a statement and numerical proof of the Pythagorean theorem.

•They were the first to develop transfinite numbers, set theory, logarithms, fundamental laws of indices, cubic equations, quadratic equations, sequences and progressions, permutations and combinations, squaring and extracting square roots, and finite and infinite powers.

Greek and Hellenistic mathematics
(c. 550 BC—AD 300)

•Greek mathematics refers to mathematics written in Greek between about 600 BCE and 450 CE.

•Greek mathematics is thought to have begun with Thales (c. 624—c.546 BC) and Pythagoras

•The Pythagoreans discovered the existence of irrational numbers.

•Euclid (c. 300 BC) is the earliest example of the format still used in mathematics today, definition, axiom, theorem, proof.

•Some say the greatest of Greek mathematicians, if not of all time, was Arhimedes (c.287—212 BC) of Syracuse

•Death of Archimedes anecdote

•Women were able to contribute to the "search for wisdom" during the period between 800 BC and 500 BC in Greece.

•Greek women received their education either in the home or from well educated experts.

•Spartan girls received a formal education more similar to the training boys received (Roice).

Who was Theano

•Theano was the most famous woman of the Pythagoreans.

•She wrote on the "number theory" and explained it as a principle to create order that helped to distinguish one thing from another.

•Theano also wrote about the ethics a woman should adopt in daily life. 

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