User:Andrewaskew/Books/Understanding Mathematics by looking at its development
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Understanding Mathematics
editLooking at developments in mathematical history
edit- Overview
- Mathematics
- Applied mathematics
- Pure mathematics
- History of mathematics
- Timeline of mathematics
- History
- Geometry. ca. 70,000 BC — South Africa, ochre rocks adorned with scratched geometric patterns.
- Time. ca. 35,000 BC to 20,000 BC — Africa and France, earliest known prehistoric attempts to quantify time.
- Prime numbers. c. 20,000 BC — Nile Valley, Ishango Bone: possibly the earliest reference to prime numbers.
- Egyptian multiplication. c. 20,000 BC — Nile Valley, Ishango Bone: possibly the earliest reference to Egyptian multiplication.
- Numeral systems. c. 3400 BC — Mesopotamia, the Sumerians invent the first numeral system.
- Mesopotamian units of measurement. c. 3400 BC — Mesopotamia, the Sumerians invent the first numeral system, and a system of weights and measures.
- Decimal numeral system. c. 3100 BC — Egypt, earliest known decimal system allows indefinite counting by way of introducing new symbols.
- Surveying. 2700 BC — Egypt, precision surveying.
- Egyptian calendar. 2400 BC — Egypt, precise astronomical calendar, used even in the Middle Ages for its mathematical regularity.
- π. c. 2000 BC — Mesopotamia, the Babylonians compute the first known approximate value of π at 3.125.
- Platonic solids. c. 2000 BC — Scotland, Carved Stone Balls exhibit a variety of symmetries including all of the symmetries of Platonic solids.
- Frusta. 1800 BC — Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, findings volume of a frustum.
- Squaring the circle. 1650 BC — Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, copy of a lost scroll from around 1850 BC, the scribe Ahmes presents the first attempt at squaring the circle.
- ∞. c. 8th century BC — the Yajur Veda, one of the four Hindu Vedas, contains the earliest concept of infinity, and states that “if you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, still what remains is infinity.”
- Quadratic equations. 800 BC — Baudhayana, author of the Baudhayana Sulba Sutra, a Vedic Sanskrit geometric text, contains quadratic equations.
- Pythagorean triples. c. 600 BC — the other Vedic “Sulba Sutras” (“rule of chords” in Sanskrit) use Pythagorean triples.
- Magic squares. second half of 1st millennium BC — The Lo Shu Square, the unique normal magic square of order three, was discovered in China.
- Irrational numbers. 530 BC — Pythagoras' group discovers the irrationality of the square root of two.