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I.
Ancient Period
Prehistoric people probably first counted with their fingers. They also had various methods for
recording such quantities as the number of animals in a herd or the days since the full moon. To represent
such amounts, they used a corresponding number of pebbles, knots in a cord, or marks on wood, bone, or
stone. They also learned to use regular shapes when they molded pottery or carved arrowheads. As
civilizations developed, the need for numeration systems, measurement techniques and arithmetic
procedures also arose.
By about 3000 B.C., mathematicians of ancient Egypt used an additive base ten system that was
without place values. The Egyptians developed geometric formulas for finding the area and volume of
simple figures. Their mathematics had many practical applications, ranging from surveying fields after
the annual floods to making the intricate calculations necessary to build the pyramids.
By 2100 B.C., the people of ancient Babylonia had developed a sexagesimal numeration system;
a system based on groups of sixty. The system had important uses in astronomy and also in commerce,
because sixty can be divided easily and works well with a calendar. It was also notable for the use of
place value to represent numbers of any size. The system survives today in the way we measure time and
angles. The Babylonians also went beyond the Egyptians in algebra and geometry. They found solutions
to quadratic equations and developed techniques for calculating square roots.
Chinese mathematics originally developed to aid record keeping, land surveying, and building.
By the 100's B.C., the Chinese had devised a decimal system of numbers that included fractions, zero, and
negative numbers. They solved arithmetic problems with the aid of special sticks called counting rods.
The Chinese also used these devices to solve equationseven groups of simultaneous equations in
several unknowns.
Perhaps the best-known early Chinese mathematical work is the Chiu Chang Suan Shu (Nine
Chapters on the Mathematical Art, a handbook of practical problems that was compiled in the first two
centuries B.C. In 263 A.D., the Chinese mathematician Liu Hui wrote a commentary on the book. Among
Liu Hui's greatest achievements was his analysis of a mathematical statement called the Gou-Gu theorem.
The theorem, known as the Pythagorean theorem in the West, describes a special relationship that exists
between the sides of a right triangle. Liu Hui also calculated the value of pi more accurately than ever
before. He did so by using a figure with 3,072 equal sides to approximate a circle.
II.
Ancient Greek scholars introduced the concepts of logical deduction and proof to create a
systematic theory of mathematics. According to tradition, one of the first to provide mathematical proofs
based on deduction was the philosopher Thales, who worked in geometry about 600 B.C. He was a
Greek merchant whose travels brought him in contact with the mathematics of Babylonia and Egypt.
Until this time, geometry had consisted strictly of measuring techniques (in fact the word geometry means
earth measurement). However, Thales made abstract, general statements, such as when two lines
intersect, they create pairs of equal angles, and attempted to justify those statements logically.
The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who lived about 550 B.C., explored the nature of numbers,
believing that everything could be understood in terms of whole numbers or their ratios. His followers
explored number patterns and discovered irrational numbers. They had a significant influence on Greek
philosophy and the promotion of mathematics for its own sake.
Around 300 B.C, Euclid, one of the foremost Greek mathematicians, organized the geometrical ideas of
the previous three hundred years into a systematic, logical structure in his work The Elements of
Geometry. In this book an entire system of geometry is constructed by means of abstract definitions,
accepted facts (postulates) and logical deductions. It had an enormous impact on mathematical thought
and became the model for the development of a mathematical system.
During the 200's B.C., the Greek mathematician and physicist Archimedes used the method of
exhaustion to find many formulas for the volume and surface areas of solids and to calculate a highly
accurate value for pi (the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter). He was also famous for
creating many engineering devices, such as Archimedes screw and discovering some of the
fundamental laws of physics.
Working at about the same time, the Greek mathematician Appolonius of
Perga, known as the Great Geometer wrote an eight volume work in which he
investigated the curves obtained by taking cross sections of a double cone. These
curves, the circle, ellipse, parabola and hyperbola, are called conic sections.
One of the last great Greek scholars, Ptolemy, applied geometry and
trigonometry to astronomy about A.D. 150. In a book, known as the Almagest, he
presented a scheme for the motions of the heavenly bodies. He claimed that the earth
was stationary and that it was in the center of a larger sphere around which the sun,
stars, moon and planets revolved at uniform rates of speed. This model became the
accepted theory of the solar system throughout the middle ages, both in the European and the Islamic
worlds.
Pythagoras of Crotona
Thales of Miletus
Apollonius of Perga
Archimedes of Syracuse
Euclid and Ptolemy
of Alexandria
Eratosthenes of Cyrene
Mathematics and the sciences entered a long period of stagnation with the decline of the Greek
and Roman civilizations. This inactivity was uninterrupted until after the Islamic religion and the
resulting Islamic culture were founded by the prophet Muhammad in A.D. 622. Within a century, the
Islamic empire stretched from Spain, Sicily, and Northern Africa to India.
Islamic culture encouraged the development of the sciences as well as the arts. Arab scholars
translated many Greek and Hindu works in mathematics and the sciences, including Apollonius's work on
conic sections. It is likely that much of the Greeks' work in science and mathematics would have been lost
if not for these Arab scholars.
The Arab mathematician Mohammed ibn Musa al-Khowarizmi wrote two important books
around A.D. 830, each of which was translated into Latin in the twelfth century. Much of the
mathematical knowledge of medieval Europe was derived from the Latin translations of al-Khowarizmi's
two works. Al-Khowarizmi's first book, on arithmetic, was titled Algorithmi de numero Indorum (or alKhowarizmi on Indian Numbers). The Latin translation of this book introduced to Europe the Hindu
number system and the simpler calculation techniques (such as the procedures for multiplication and long
division) that system allows. This system is now called the Hindu-Arabic number system. The book's title
is the origin of the word algorithm, which means a procedure for solving a certain type of problem, such
as the procedure for long division.
Al-Khowarizmi's second book, Al-Jabr w'al Muqabatah, discussed linear and
quadratic equations. In fact, the word algebra comes from the title of this second book. This title, which
translates literally as Restoration and Opposition, refers to the solving of an equation by adding the same
thing to each side of the equation (which "restores the balance" of the equation) and simplifying the result
by canceling opposite terms (which is the title's "opposition"). For example (using modern symbolic
algebra):
6x = 5x+ 11
6x + -5x
= 5x + 11 + -5x
"al-jabr" or restoration of balance
x = 11
al-muqabalah" or opposition
The quote below, from a translation of Al-Jabr w'al Muqabalah, demonstrates several important
features of al-Khowarizmi 's algebra. First, it is entirely verbal, as was the algebra of Apolloniusthere is
no symbolic algebra at all. Second, this algebra differs from that of Apollonius in that it is not based on
proportions. Third, the terminology betrays the algebra's connections with geometry. When alKhowarizmi refers to "a square," he is actually referring to the area of a square; when he refers to "a
root," he is actually referring to the length of one side of the square (hence the modern phrase "square
root"). Modern symbolic algebra uses the notations x2 and x in place of "a square" and "a root."
The quote from Al-Jabr w'al Muqabalah is on the left; a modern version of
the same instructions is on the right. You might recognize this modern version from intermediate algebra,
where it is called "completing the square."
The following is an example of squares and
roots equal to numbers: a square and 10 roots
are equal to 39 units.
The question therefore in this type of equation
is about as follows: what is the square which
combined with ten of its roots will give a sum
total of 39? The manner of solving this type of
equation is to take one half of the roots just
mentioned. Now the roots in the problem
before us are 10. Therefore take 5, which
multiplied by itself gives 25, an amount which
you add to 39, giving 64. Having taken then
the square root of this which is 8, subtract from
it the half of the roots, 5, leaving 3. The
number three therefore represents one root of
this square, which itself, of course, is 9. Nine
therefore gives that square.
x2 + 10x = 39
Solve for x2
10 = 5
52 = 25
x2 + 10x + 25 = 39 + 25
x2 + 10x + 25 = 64
(x + 5)2 = 64
x+5=8
x+5-3=8-3
x=3
x2 = 9
Al-Khowarizmi, like Apollonius, understood numbers to be lengths of line segments, areas, and
volumes. He did not recognize negative numbers, because neither a line nor an area nor a volume can be
represented by a negative number.
Arab astronomers of the 900's made major contributions to trigonometry. During the 1000s, an
Arab physicist known as Alhazen applied geometry to optics. The Persian poet and astronomer Omar
Khayyam wrote an important book on algebra about 1100. In the 1200s, Nasiral-Din al-Tusi, a Persian
mathematician, created ingenious mathematical models for use in astronomy.
IV.
Europe.
During the 1400s and 1500's, European explorers sought new overseas trade routes, stimulating
the application of mathematics to navigation and commerce. As trade expanded, Arab and Greek
knowledge was transmitted throughout Europe. In 1453 the Turks conquered Constantinople, the last
remaining center of Greek culture. Many Eastern scholars moved from Constantinople to Europe,
bringing Greek knowledge and manuscripts with them. Around the same time, Gutenberg invented the
movable-type printing press, which greatly increased the availability of scientific information in the form
of both new works and translations of ancient works. Translations of Euclid's work, Ptolemys Almagest
and some of Apollonius's work on geometry were printed, as was the Franciscan monk Luca Pacioli's
Summa de arithmetica, geometrica, proportioni et proportionalita, which was a summary of the
arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and double-entry bookkeeping known at that time.
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