PREHISTORIC MATHEMATICS

Early man kept track of regular occurrences such as the phases of the moon and the seasons. Some of the very earliest
evidence of mankind thinking about numbers is from notched bones in Africa dating back to 35,000 to 20,000 years ago.
But this is really mere counting and tallying rather than mathematics as such.

Pre-dynastic Egyptians and Sumerians represented geometric designs on their artefacts as early as the 5th millennium
BCE, as did some megalithic societies in northern Europe in the 3rd millennium BCE or before. But this is more art and
decoration than the systematic treatment of figures, patterns, forms and quantities that has come to be considered as
mathematics.

According to some authorities, there is evidence of basic arithmetic and geometric notations on the petroglyphs at Knowth
and Newgrange burial mounds in Ireland (dating from about 3500 BCE and 3200 BCE respectively). These utilize a
repeated zig-zag glyph for counting, a system which continued to be used in Britain and Ireland into the 1st millennium
BCE. Stonehenge, a Neolithic ceremonial and astronomical monument in England, which dates from around 2300 BCE,
also arguably exhibits examples of the use of 60 and 360 in the circle measurements, a practice which presumably
developed quite independently of the sexagesimal counting system of the ancient Sumerian and Babylonians.

SUMERIAN/BABYLONIAN MATHEMATICS

Sumer (a region of Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq) was the birthplace of writing, the wheel, agriculture, the arch, the
plow, irrigation and many other innovations, and is often referred to as the Cradle of Civilization. The Sumerians
developed the earliest known writing system - a pictographic writing system known as cuneiform script, using wedge-
shaped characters inscribed on baked clay tablets.

As in Egypt, Sumerian mathematics initially developed largely as a response to bureaucratic needs when their civilization
settled and developed agriculture (possibly as early as the 6th millennium BCE) for the measurement of plots of land, the
taxation of individuals, etc. In addition, the Sumerians and Babylonians needed to describe quite large numbers as they
attempted to chart the course of the night sky and develop their sophisticated lunar calendar.

Sumerian and Babylonian mathematics was based on a sexegesimal, or base 60, numeric system. Unlike those of
the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Babylonian numbers used a true place-value system, where digits written in the left
column represented larger values, much as in the modern decimal system, although of course using base 60 not base 10.

We have evidence of the development of a complex system of metrology in Sumer from about 3000 BCE, and
multiplication and reciprocal (division) tables, tables of squares, square roots and cube roots, geometrical exercises and
division problems from around 2600 BCE onwards. Later Babylonian tablets dating from about 1800 to 1600 BCE cover
topics as varied as fractions, algebra, methods for solving linear, quadratic and even some cubic equations, and the
calculation of regular reciprocal pairs (pairs of number which multiply together to give 60). One Babylonian tablet gives
an approximation to √2 accurate to an astonishing five decimal places. Others list the squares of numbers up to 59, the
cubes of numbers up to 32 as well as tables of compound interest. Yet another gives an estimate for π of 3 1⁄8 (3.125, a
reasonable approximation of the real value of 3.1416).

The Babylonians used geometric shapes in their buildings and design and in dice for the leisure games which were so
popular in their society, such as the ancient game of backgammon. Their geometry extended to the calculation of the areas
of rectangles, triangles and trapezoids, as well as the volumes of simple shapes such as bricks and cylinders (although not
pyramids).

The famous and controversial Plimpton 322 clay tablet, believed to date from around 1800 BCE, suggests that the
Babylonians may well have known the secret of right-angled triangles (that the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of
the square of the other two sides) many centuries before the Greek Pythagoras. The tablet appears to list 15 perfect
Pythagorean triangles with whole number sides, although some claim that they were merely academic exercises, and not
deliberate manifestations of Pythagorean triples.

EGYPTIAN MATHEMATICS

The early Egyptians settled along the fertile Nile valley as early as about 6000 BCE, and they began to record the patterns
of lunar phases and the seasons, both for agricultural and religious reasons. The Pharaoh’s surveyors used measurements
based on body parts to measure land and buildings very early in Egyptian history, and a decimal numeric system was
developed based on our ten fingers. The oldest mathematical text from ancient Egypt discovered so far, though, is the
Moscow Papyrus, which dates from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom around 2000 - 1800 BCE.
It is thought that the Egyptians introduced the earliest fully-developed base 10 numeration system at least as early as 2700
BCE (and probably much early). However, there was no concept of place value, so larger numbers were rather unwieldy
(although a million required just one character, a million minus one required fifty-four characters).

The Rhind Papyrus, dating from around 1650 BCE, is a kind of instruction manual in arithmetic and geometry, and it
gives us explicit demonstrations of how multiplication and division was carried out at that time. It also contains evidence
of other mathematical knowledge, including unit fractions, composite and prime numbers, arithmetic, geometric and
harmonic means, and how to solve first order linear equations as well as arithmetic and geometric series. The Berlin
Papyrus, which dates from around 1300 BCE, shows that ancient Egyptians could solve second-order algebraic
(quadratic) equations.

The pyramids themselves are another indication of the sophistication of Egyptian mathematics. Setting aside claims that
the pyramids are first known structures to observe the golden ratio of 1 : 1.618 (which may have occurred for purely
aesthetic, and not mathematical, reasons), there is certainly evidence that they knew the formula for the volume of a
pyramid - 1⁄3 times the height times the length times the width - as well as of a truncated or clipped pyramid. They were
also aware, long before Pythagoras, of the rule that a triangle with sides 3, 4 and 5 units yields a perfect right angle, and
Egyptian builders used ropes knotted at intervals of 3, 4 and 5 units in order to ensure exact right angles for their
stonework (in fact, the 3-4-5 right triangle is often called "Egyptian")

GREEK MATHEMATICS

The ancient Greek numeral system, known as Attic or Herodianic

numerals, was fully developed by about 450 BCE, It was a base 10
system similar to the earlier Egyptian one, with symbols for 1, 5, 10,
50, 100, 500 and 1,000 repeated as many times needed to represent the
desired number. Addition was done by totalling separately the symbols
(1s, 10s, 100s, etc) in the numbers to be added, and multiplication was
a laborious process based on successive doublings (division was based
on the inverse of this process).

But most of Greek mathematics was based on geometry. Thales, one of

the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece, who lived on the Ionian coast of Asian Minor in the first half of the 6th Century BCE,

Thales' Theorem, whereby if a triangle is drawn within a circle with the long side as a diameter of the circle, then the
opposite angle will always be a right. He is also credited with another theorem, also known as Thales' Theorem or the
Intercept Theorem, about the ratios of the line segments that are created if two intersecting lines are intercepted by a pair
of.

Three geometrical problems in particular, often referred to as the Three Classical Problems, and all to be solved by purely
geometric means using only a straight edge and a compass, date back to the early days of Greek geometry: “the squaring
(or quadrature) of the circle”, “the doubling (or duplicating) of the cube” and “the trisection of an angle”. These
intransigent problems were profoundly influential on future geometry and led to many fruitful discoveries, although their
actual solutions (or, as it turned out, the proofs of their impossibility) had to wait until the 19th Century.

GREEK MATHEMATICS

 PYTHAGORAS

It is sometimes claimed that we owe pure mathematics to Pythagoras, and he is often called the first "true" mathematician.
But, although his contribution was clearly important, he nevertheless remains a controversial figure. He left no
mathematical writings himself, and much of what we know about Pythagorean thought comes to us from the writings of
Philolaus and other later Pythagorean scholars.

The over-riding dictum of Pythagoras's school was “All is number” or “God is number”, and the Pythagoreans effectively
practised a kind of numerology or number-worship, and considered each number to have its own character and meaning.

He is mainly remembered for what has become known as Pythagoras’ Theorem (or the Pythagorean Theorem): that, for
any right-angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse (the longest side, opposite the right angle) is equal to
the sum of the square of the other two sides (or “legs”). Written as an equation: a2 + b2 = c2.

Among his other achievements in geometry, Pythagoras (or at least his followers, the Pythagoreans) also realized that the
sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles (180°), and probably also the generalization which states that
the sum of the interior angles of a polygon with n sides is equal to (2n - 4) right angles, and that the sum of its exterior
angles equals 4 right angles. They were able to construct figures of a given area, and to use simple geometrical algebra,
for example to solve equations such as a(a - x) = x2 by geometrical means. Pythagoras is also credited with the discovery
that the intervals between harmonious musical notes always have whole number ratios

 PLATO

Although usually remembered today as a philosopher, Plato was also one of ancient Greece’s most important patrons of
mathematics. Inspired by Pythagoras, he founded his Academy in Athens in 387 BCE, where he stressed mathematics as
a way of understanding more about reality. In particular, he was convinced that geometry was the key to unlocking the
secrets of the universe. The sign above the Academy entrance read: “Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter here”.

Plato the mathematician is perhaps best known for his identification of 5 regular symmetrical 3-dimensional shapes,
which he maintained were the basis for the whole universe, and which have become known as the Platonic Solids: the
tetrahedron (constructed of 4 regular triangles, and which for Plato represented fire), the octahedron (composed of 8
triangles, representing air), the icosahedron (composed of 20 triangles, and representing water), the cube (composed of 6
squares, and representing earth), and the dodecahedron (made up of 12 pentagons, which Plato obscurely described as “the
god used for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven”).

HELLENISTIC MATHEMATICS

By the 3rd Century BCE, in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great, mathematical breakthroughs were also
beginning to be made on the edges of the Greek Hellenistic empire.In particular, Alexandria in Egypt became a great
centre of learning under the beneficent rule of the Ptolemies, and its famous Library soon gained a reputation to rival that
of the Athenian Academy. The patrons of the Library were arguably the first professional scientists, paid for their
devotion to research. Among the best known and most influential mathematicians who studied and taught at Alexandria
were Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Heron, Menelaus and Diophantus.

In the 1st century BCE, Heron (or Hero) was another great Alexandrian inventor, best known in mathematical circles for
Heronian triangles (triangles with integer sides and integer area), Heron’s Formula for finding the area of a triangle from
its side lengths, and Heron’s Method for iteratively computing a square root. He was also the first mathematician to
confront at least the idea of √-1.

In the 3rd Century CE, Diophantus of Alexandria was the first to recognize fractions as numbers, and is considered an
early innovator in the field of what would later become known as algebra. He applied himself to some quite complex
algebraic problems, including what is now known as Diophantine Analysis, which deals with finding integer solutions to
kinds of problems that lead to equations in several unknowns (Diophantine equations). Diophantus’ “Arithmetica”, a
collection of problems giving numerical solutions of both determinate and indeterminate equations, was the most
prominent work on algebra in all Greek mathematics, and his problems exercised the minds of many of the world's best
mathematicians for much of the next two millennia.

But Alexandria was not the only centre of learning in the Hellenistic Greek empire. Mention should also be made of
Apollonius of Perga (a city in modern-day southern Turkey) whose late 3rd Century BCE work on geometry (and, in
particular, on conics and conic sections) was very influential on later European mathematicians. It was Apollonius who
gave the ellipse, the parabola, and the hyperbola the names by which we know them, and showed how they could be
derived from different sections through a cone.

 EUCLID

The Greek mathematician Euclid lived and flourished in Alexandria in Egypt around 300 BCE, during the reign of
Ptolemy I. Euclid is often referred to as the “Father of Geometry”, and he wrote perhaps the most important and
successful mathematical textbook of all time, the “Stoicheion” or “Elements”, which represents the culmination of the
mathematical revolution which had taken place in Greece up to that time. He also wrote works on the division of
geometrical figures into into parts in given ratios, on catoptrics (the mathematical theory of mirrors and reflection), and on
spherical astronomy (the determination of the location of objects on the "celestial sphere"), as well as important texts on
optics and music.

The "Elements” was a lucid and comprehensive compilation and explanation of all the known mathematics of his time,
including the work of Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Theudius, Theaetetus and Eudoxus. In all, it contains 465 theorems and
proofs, described in a clear, logical and elegant style, and using only a compass and a straight edge. Euclid reworked the
mathematical concepts of his predecessors into a consistent whole, later to become known as Euclidean geometry, which
is still as valid today as it was 2,300 years ago, even in higher mathematics dealing with higher dimensional spaces.

However, the “Elements” also includes a series of theorems on the properties of numbers and integers, marking the first
real beginnings of number theory. He was the first to realize - and prove - that there are infinitely many prime numbers.
The basis of his proof, often known as Euclid’s Theorem, is that, for any given (finite) set of primes, if you multiply all
of them together and then add one, then a new prime has been added to the set (for example, 2 x 3 x 5 = 30, and 30 + 1 =
31, a prime number) a process which can be repeated indefinitely. Euclid also identified the first four “perfect numbers”,
numbers that are the sum of all their divisors (excluding the number itself.

 ARCHIMEDES

Another Greek mathematician who studied at Alexandria in the 3rd Century BCE was Archimedes, although he was born,
died and lived most of his life in Syracuse, Sicily (a Hellenic Greek colony in Magna Graecia). Also an engineer, inventor
and astronomer, Archimedes was best known throughout most of history for his military innovations like his siege engines
and mirrors to harness and focus the power of the sun, as well as levers, pulleys and pumps (including the famous screw
pump known as Archimedes’ Screw, which is still used today in some parts of the world for irrigation). Archimedes
produced formulas to calculate the areas of regular shapes, using a revolutionary method of capturing new shapes by using
shapes he already understood.

Archimedes’ most sophisticated use of the method of exhaustion, which remained unsurpassed until the development of
integral calculus in the 17th Century, was his proof - known as the Quadrature of the Parabola - that the area of a
parabolic segment is 4⁄3 that of a certain inscribed triangle. He dissected the area of a parabolic segment (the region
enclosed by a parabola and a line) into infinitely many triangles whose areas form a geometric progression. He then
computed the sum of the resulting geometric series, and proved that this is the area of the parabolic segment.

The discovery of which Archimedes claimed to be most proud was that of the relationship between a sphere and a
circumscribing cylinder of the same height and diameter. He calculated the volume of a sphere as 4⁄3πr3, and that of a
cylinder of the same height and diameter as 2πr3. The surface area was 4πr2 for the sphere, and 6πr2 for the cylinder
(including its two bases). Therefore, it turns out that the sphere has a volume equal to two-thirds that of the cylinder, and a
surface area also equal to two-thirds that of the cylinder. Archimedes was so pleased with this result that a sculpted sphere
and cylinder were supposed to have been placed on his tomb of at his request.

 DIOPHANTUS

Diophantus was a Hellenistic Greek (or possibly Egyptian, Jewish or even Chaldean) mathematician who lived in
Alexandria during the 3rd Century CE. He is sometimes called “the father of algebra”, and wrote an influential series of
books called the “Arithmetica”, a collection of algebraic problems which greatly influenced the subsequent development
of number theory.

ROMAN MATHEMATICS

By the middle of the 1st Century BCE, the Roman had tightened their grip on the old Greek and Hellenistic empires, and
the mathematical revolution of the Greeks ground to halt. Despite all their advances in other respects, no mathematical
innovations occurred under the Roman Empire and Republic, and there were no mathematicians of note. The Romans had
no use for pure mathematics, only for its practical applications.

Roman numerals are well known today, and were the dominant number system for trade and administration in most of
Europe for the best part of a millennium. It was decimal (base 10) system but not directly positional, and did not include a
zero, so that, for arithmetic and mathematical purposes, it was a clumsy and inefficient system. It was based on letters of
the Roman alphabet - I, V, X, L, C, D and M - combines to signify the sum of their values (e.g. VII = V + I + I = 7).
Later, a subtractive notation was also adopted, where VIIII, for example, was replaced by IX (10 - 1 = 9), which
simplified the writing of numbers a little, but made calculation even more difficult, requiring conversion of the subtractive
notation at the beginning of a sum and then its re-application at the end.

MAYAN MATHEMATICS

The Mayan civilisation had settled in the region of Central America from about 2000 BCE, although the so-called Classic
Period stretches from about 250 CE to 900 CE.

The Mayan and other Mesoamerican cultures used a vigesimal number system based on base 20 (and, to some extent, base
5), probably originally developed from counting on fingers and toes. The numerals consisted of only three symbols: zero,
represented as a shell shape; one, a dot; and five, a bar. Thus, addition and subtraction was a relatively simple matter of
adding up dots and bars. After the number 19, larger numbers were written in a kind of vertical place value format using
powers of 20: 1, 20, 400, 8000, 160000, etc (see image above), although in their calendar calculations they gave the third
position a value of 360 instead of 400 (higher positions revert to multiples of 20).
The pre-classic Maya and their neighbours had independently developed the concept of zero by at least as early as 36
BCE, and we have evidence of their working with sums up to the hundreds of millions, and with dates so large it took
several lines just to represent them. Despite not possessing the concept of a fraction, they produced extremely accurate
astronomical observations using no instruments other than sticks, and were able to measure the length of the solar year to
a far higher degree of accuracy than that used in Europe (their calculations produced 365.242 days, compared to the
modern value of 365.242198), as well as the length of the lunar month (their estimate was 29.5308 days, compared to the
modern value of 29.53059).

CHINESE MATHEMATICS

The simple but efficient ancient Chinese numbering system, which dates back to at least the 2nd millennium BCE, used
small bamboo rods arranged to represent the numbers 1 to 9, which were then places in columns representing units, tens,
hundreds, thousands, etc. It was therefore a decimal place value system, very similar to the one we use today - indeed it
was the first such number system, adopted by the Chinese over a thousand years before it was adopted in the West - and it
made even quite complex calculations very quick and easy.

There was a pervasive fascination with numbers and mathematical patterns in ancient China, and different numbers were
believed to have cosmic significance. In particular, magic squares - squares of numbers where each row, column and
diagonal added up to the same total - were regarded as having great spiritual and religious significance.

The Lo Shu Square, an order three square where each row, column and diagonal adds up to 15, is perhaps the earliest of
these, dating back to around 650 BCE (the legend of Emperor Yu’s discovery of the the square on the back of a turtle is
set as taking place in about 2800 BCE). But soon, bigger magic squares were being constructed, with even greater magical
and mathematical powers, culminating in the elaborate magic squares, circles and triangles of Yang Hui in the 13th
Century (Yang Hui also produced a trianglular representation of binomial coefficients identical to the later Pascals’
Triangle, and was perhaps the first to use decimal fractions in the modern form).

But the main thrust of Chinese mathematics developed in response to the empire’s growing need for mathematically
competent administrators. A textbook called “Jiuzhang Suanshu” or “Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art”
became an important tool in the education of such a civil service, covering hundreds of problems in practical areas such as
trade, taxation, engineering and the payment of wages.

The Chinese went on to solve far more complex equations using far larger numbers than those outlined in the “Nine
Chapters”, though. They also started to pursue more abstract mathematical problems (although usually couched in rather
artificial practical terms), including what has become known as the Chinese Remainder Theorem. A technique for solving
such problems, initially posed by Sun Tzu in the 3rd Century CE and considered one of the jewels of mathematics, was
being used to measure planetary movements by Chinese astronomers in the 6th Century AD, and even today it has
practical uses, such as in Internet cryptography.

CHINESE MATHEMATICIANS

 Liu Hui - produced a detailed commentary on the “Nine Chapters” in 263 CE, was one of the first
mathematicians known to leave roots unevaluated, giving more exact results instead of approximations. By an
approximation using a regular polygon with 192 sides, he also formulated an algorithm which calculated the value
of π as 3.14159 (correct to five decimal places), as well as developing a very early forms of both integral and
differential calculus.
 Qin Jiushao - a rather violent and corrupt imperial administrator and warrior, who explored solutions to
quadratic and even cubic equations using a method of repeated approximations very similar to that later devised in
the West by Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th Century.

INDIAN MATHEMATICS

Like the Chinese, the Indians early discovered the benefits of a decimal number system. They refined and perfected the
system, particularly the written representation of the numerals, creating the ancestors of the nine numerals that we use
across the world today. The earliest recorded usage of a circle character for the number zero is usually attributed to a 9th
Century engraving in a temple in Gwalior in central India.

Golden Age Indian mathematicians made fundamental advances in the theory of trigonometry. Indian astronomers used
trigonometry to calculate the relative distances between the Earth and the Moon and the Earth and the Sun.

BRAHMAGUPTA
  “Brahmasphutasiddhanta” is probably the earliest known text to treat zero as a number in its own right.
 Established the basic mathematical rules for dealing with zero.
 Realized that there could be such a thing as a negative number, which he referred to as “debt”.
 He pointed out, quadratic equations (of the type x² + 2 = 11, for example) could in theory have two possible
solutions, one of which could be negative, because 3² = 9 and -3² = 9.
 He established √10 (3.162277) as a good practical approximation for π (3.141593), and gave a formula, now
known as Brahmagupta's Formula.

MADHAVA

 He realized that, by successively adding and subtracting different odd number fractions to infinity, he could home
in on an exact formula for π
 He discovered a procedure to determine the positions of the Moon every 36 minutes, and methods to estimate the
motions of the planets.

ISLAM MATHEMATICS

The Islamic Empire established across Persia, the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa, Iberia and parts of India from
the 8th Century onwards made significant contributions towards mathematics. Extensive use of complex geometric
patterns to decorate their buildings, raising mathematics to the form of an art.

The Qur'an itself encouraged the accumulation of knowledge, and a Golden Age of Islamic science and mathematics
flourished throughout the medieval period from the 9th to 15th century.

The House of Wisdom was set up in Baghdad around 810, and work started almost immediately on translating the
major Greek and Indian mathematical and astronomy works into Arabic.

Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi (c.780-850 CE)

 Persian mathematician
 An early Director of the House of Wisdom
 One of the greatest of early Muslim mathematicians.

ALGEBRA

Al-Khwarizmi’s other important contribution

 A word derived from the title of a mathematical text he published called “Al-Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr
wa'l-muqabala” (“The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Bcontributio
 Al-Khwarizmi wanted to go from the specific problems considered by the Indians and Chinese to a more general
way of analyzing problems, and in doing so he created an abstract mathematical language which is used across the
world today.
 His book is considered the foundational text of modern algebra, although he did not employ the kind of algebraic
notation used today (he used words to explain the problem, and diagrams to solve it).

The book provided and introduced for the first time the fundamental algebraic methods of: reduction, completion and
balancing.

Muhammad Al-Karaji

 The 10th Century Persian mathematician

 Worked to extend algebra still further, freeing it from its geometrical heritage, and introduced the theory of
algebraic calculus.
 First to use the method of proof by mathematical induction to prove his results.
 Used mathematical induction to prove the binomial theorem.

A binomial is a simple type of algebraic expression which has just two terms which are operated on only by addition,
subtraction, multiplication and positive whole-number exponents, such as (x + y)2. The co-efficient needed when a
binomial is expanded form a symmetrical triangle, usually referred to as Pascal’s Triangle

Nasir Al-Din Al-Tusi

 13th Century Persian astronomer, scientist and mathematician

  Perhaps the first to treat trigonometry as a separate mathematical discipline, distinct from astronomy
 He gave the first extensive exposition of spherical trigonometry, including listing the six distinct cases of a right
triangle in spherical trigonometry.
 One of his major mathematical contributions was the formulation of the famous law of sines for plane
triangles, a⁄(sin A) = b⁄(sin B) = c⁄(sin C)

MEDIEVAL MATHEMATICS

Europe’s first great medieval mathematician was the Italian Leonardo of Pisa, better known by his nickname Fibonacci.
Fibonacci is best known, though, for his introduction into Europe of a particular number sequence, which has since
become known as Fibonacci Numbers or the Fibonacci Sequence. He discovered the sequence - the first recursive number
sequence known in Europe - while considering a practical problem in the “Liber Abaci” involving the growth of a
hypothetical population of rabbits based on idealized assumptions. He noted that, after each monthly generation, the
number of pairs of rabbits increased from 1 to 2 to 3 to 5 to 8 to 13, etc, and identified how the sequence progressed by
adding the previous two terms (in mathematical terms, Fn = Fn-1 + Fn-2), a sequence which could in theory extend
indefinitely.

The sequence, which had actually been known to Indian mathematicians since the 6th Century, has many interesting
mathematical properties, and many of the implications and relationships of the sequence were not discovered until several
centuries after Fibonacci's death. The numbers of the sequence has also been found to be ubiquitous in nature: among
other things, many species of flowering plants have numbers of petals in the Fibonacci Sequence.

An important (but largely unknown and underrated) mathematician and scholar of the 14th Century was the Frenchman
Nicole Oresme. He used a system of rectangular coordinates centuries before his countryman René
Descartes popularized the idea, as well as perhaps the first time-speed-distance graph. Also, leading from his research
into musicology, he was the first to use fractional exponents, and also worked on infinite series, being the first to prove
that the harmonic series 1⁄1 + 1⁄2 + 1⁄3 + 1⁄4 + 1⁄5... is a divergent infinite series (i.e. not tending to a limit, other than infinity).

The German scholar Regiomontatus was perhaps the most capable mathematician of the 15th Century, his main
contribution to mathematics being in the area of trigonometry. He helped separate trigonometry from astronomy, and it
was largely through his efforts that trigonometry came to be considered an independent branch of mathematics. His book
"De Triangulis", in which he described much of the basic trigonometric knowledge which is now taught in high school
and college, was the first great book on trigonometry to appear in print.

Mention should also be made of Nicholas of Cusa (or Nicolaus Cusanus), a 15th Century German philosopher,
mathematician and astronomer, whose prescient ideas on the infinite and the infinitesimal directly influenced later
mathematicians like Gottfried Leibniz and Georg Cantor. He also held some distinctly non-standard intuitive ideas about
the universe and the Earth's position in it, and about the elliptical orbits of the planets and relative motion, which
foreshadowed the later discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler.

16TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS

The cultural, intellectual and artistic movement of the Renaissance, which saw a resurgence of learning based on classical
sources, began in Italy around the 14th Century, and gradually spread across most of Europe over the next two centuries.
It is a tribute to the respect in which mathematics was held in Renaissance Europe that the famed German artist Albrecht
Dürer included an order-4 magic square in his engraving "Melencolia I". In fact, it is a so-called "supermagic square"
with many more lines of addition symmetry than a regular 4 x 4 magic square (see image at right). The year of the work,
1514, is shown in the two bottom central squares.

An important figure in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries is an Italian Franciscan friar called Luca Pacioli, who
published a book on arithmetic, geometry and book-keeping at the end of the 15th Century which became quite popular
for the mathematical puzzles it contained. It also introduced symbols for plus and minus for the first time in a printed
book (although this is also sometimes attributed to Giel Vander Hoecke, Johannes Widmann and others), symbols that
were to become standard notation.

During the 16th and early 17th Century, the equals, multiplication, division, radical (root), decimal and inequality
symbols were gradually introduced and standardized. The use of decimal fractions and decimal arithmetic is usually
attributed to the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin the late 16th Century, although the decimal point notation was not
popularized until early in the 17th Century.

In the Renaissance Italy of the early 16th Century, Bologna University in particular was famed for its intense public
mathematics competitions. It was in just such a competion that the unlikely figure of the young, self-taught Niccolò
Fontana Tartaglia revealed to the world the formula for solving first one type, and later all types, of cubic equations
(equations with terms including x3).

Building on Tartaglia’s work, another young Italian, Lodovico Ferrari, soon devised a similar method to solve quartic
equations (equations with terms including x4) and both solutions were published by Gerolamo Cardano.
With Hindu-Arabic numerals, standardized notation and the new language of algebra at their disposal, the stage was set
for the European mathematical revolution of the 17th Century.

 TARTAGLIA, CARDANO & FERRARI

In the Renaissance Italy of the early 16th Century, Bologna University in particular was famed for its intense public
mathematics competitions. It was in just such a competition, in 1535, that the unlikely figure of the young Venetian
Tartaglia first revealed a mathematical finding hitherto considered impossible, and which had stumped the best
mathematicians of China, India and the Islamic world.

Niccolò Fontana became known as Tartaglia (meaning “the stammerer”) for a speech defect he suffered due to an injury
he received in a battle against the invading French army. He was a poor engineer known for designing fortifications, a
surveyor of topography (seeking the best means of defence or offence in battles) and a bookkeeper in the Republic of
Venice. But he was also a self-taught, but wildly ambitious, mathematician.

Tartaglia's greates legacy to mathematical history, though, occurred when he won the 1535 Bologna University
mathematics competition by demonstrating a general algebraic formula for solving cubic equations (equations with terms
including x3), something which had come to be seen by this time as an impossibility, requiring as it does an understanding
of the square roots of negative numbers. In the competition, he beat Scipione del Ferro (or at least del Ferro's assistant,
Fior), who had coincidentally produced his own partial solution to the cubic equation problem not long before. Although
del Ferro's solution perhaps predated Tartaglia’s, it was much more limited, and Tartaglia is usually credited with the first
general solution. In the highly competitive and cut-throat environment of 16th Century Italy, Tartaglia even encoded his
solution in the form of a poem in an attempt to make it more difficult for other mathematicians to steal it.

Tartaglia’s definitive method was, however, leaked to Gerolamo Cardano (or Cardan), a rather eccentric and
confrontational mathematician, doctor and Renaissance man, and author throughout his lifetime of some 131 books.
Cardano published it himself in his 1545 book "Ars Magna" (despite having promised Tartaglia that he would not), along
with the work of his own brilliant student Lodovico Ferrari. Ferrari, on seeing Tartaglia's cubic solution, had realized
that he could use a similar method to solve quartic equations (equations with terms including x4).

Ferrari eventually came to understand cubic and quartic equations much better than Tartaglia. When Ferrari challenged
Tartaglia to another public debate, Tartaglia initially accepted, but then (perhaps wisely) decided not to show up, and
Ferrari won by default. Tartaglia was thoroughly discredited and became effectively unemployable. Poor Tartaglia died
penniless and unknown, despite having produced (in addition to his cubic equation solution) the first translation
of Euclid’s “Elements” in a modern European language, formulated Tartaglia's Formula for the volume of a tetrahedron,
devised a method to obtain binomial coefficients called Tartaglia's Triangle (an earlier version of Pascal's Triangle), and
become the first to apply mathematics to the investigation of the paths of cannonballs (work which was later validated by
Galileo's studies on falling bodies). Even today, the solution to cubic equations is usually known as Cardano’s
Formula and not Tartgalia’s.

Ferrari, on the other hand, obtained a prestigious teaching post while still in his teens after Cardano resigned from it and
recommended him, and was eventually able to retired young and quite rich, despite having started out as Cardano’s
servant.

Cardano himself, an accomplished gambler and chess player, wrote a book called "Liber de ludo aleae" ("Book on
Games of Chance") when he was just 25 years old, which contains perhaps the first systematic treatment of probability (as
well as a section on effective cheating methods). The ancient Greeks, Romans and Indians had all been inveterate
gamblers, but none of them had ever attempted to understand randomness as being governed by mathematical laws.
Cardano was also the first to describe hypocycloids, the pointed plane curves generated by the trace of a fixed point on a
small circle that rolls within a larger circle, and the generating circles were later named Cardano (or Cardanic) circles.
The colourful Cardano remained notoriously short of money thoughout his life, largely due to his gambling habits, and
was accused of heresy in 1570 after publishing a horoscope of Jesus (apparently, his own son contributed to the
prosecution, bribed by Tartaglia).

17th CENTURY MATHEMATICS

RENÉ DESCARTES (1596-1650)

 René Descartes has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy", but he was also one of the key figures in the
Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century, and is sometimes considered the first of the modern school of
mathematics.
 In 1637, he published his ground-breaking philosophical and mathematical treatise "Discours de la méthode" (the
“Discourse on Method”), and one of its appendices in particular, "La Géométrie", is now considered a landmark
in the history of mathematics.
 It was in "La Géométrie" that Descartes first proposed that each point in two dimensions can be described by two
numbers on a plane, one giving the point’s horizontal location and the other the vertical location, which have
come to be known as Cartesian coordinates. He used perpendicular lines (or axes), crossing at a point called the
 origin, to measure the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) locations, both positive and negative, thus effectively
dividing the plane up into four quadrants.

PIERRE DE FERMAT (1607-1665)

 French mathematician who is often called the founder of the modern theory of numbers.
 Fermat discovered the fundamental principle of analytic geometry. His methods for finding tangents to curves and
their maximum and minimum points led him to be regarded as the inventor of the differential calculus.
 Through his correspondence with Blaise Pascal he was a co-founder of the theory of probability. Fermat's
mathematical work was communicated mainly in letters to friends, often with little or no proof of his theorems.
Although he himself claimed to have proved all his arithmetic theorems, few records of his proofs have survived,
and many mathematicians have doubted some of his claims, especially given the difficulty of some of the
problems and the limited mathematical tools available to Fermat.
 One example of his many theorems is the Two Square Theorem, which shows that any prime number which,
when divided by 4, leaves a remainder of 1 (4n + 1)
 While investigating a technique for finding the centres of gravity of various plane and solid figures, he developed
a method for determining maxima, minima and tangents to various curves that was essentially equivalent to
differentiation. Also, using an ingenious trick, he was able to reduce the integral of general power functions to the
sums of geometric series.

BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662)

 Much of his early work was in the area of natural and applied sciences, and he has a physical law named after him
(that “pressure exerted anywhere in a confined liquid is transmitted equally and undiminished in all directions
throughout the liquid”), as well as the international unit for the measurement of pressure.
 At the age of sixteen, he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry, known as Pascal's
Theorem, which states that, if a hexagon is inscribed in a circle, then the three intersection points of opposite sides
lie on a single line, called the Pascal line.
 As a young man, he built a functional calculating machine, able to perform additions and subtractions, to help his
father with his tax calculations. Pascal's calculator (also known as the arithmetic machine or Pascaline) is a
mechanical calculator invented by Blaise Pascal in the early 17th century. Pascal was led to develop a calculator
by the laborious arithmetical calculations required by his father's work as the supervisor of taxes in Rouen.
 He is best known, however, for Pascal’s Triangle, a convenient tabular presentation of binomial co-efficient,
where each number is the sum of the two numbers directly above it. A binomial is a simple type of algebraic
expression which has just two terms operated on only by addition, subtraction, multiplication and positive whole-
number exponents, such as (x + y) ^2.

ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

 His theory of calculus built on earlier work by his fellow Englishmen John Wallis and Isaac Barrow, as well as on
work of such Continental mathematicians as René Descartes, Pierre de Fermat, Bonaventura Cavalieri, Johann
van Waveren Hudde and Gilles Personne de Roberval.
 Unlike the static geometry of the Greeks, calculus allowed mathematicians and engineers to make sense of the
motion and dynamic change in the changing world around us, such as the orbits of planets, the motion of fluids.
 Newton’s work in calculus initially started as a way to find the slope at any point on a curve whose slope was
constantly varying (the slope of a tangent line to the curve at any point). He calculated the derivative in order to
find the slope. He called this the “method of fluxions” rather than differentiation. That is because he termed
“fluxion” as the instantaneous rate of change at a point on the curve and “fluents” as the changing values of x and
y. He then established that the opposite of differentiation is integration, which he called the “method of fluents”.
This allowed him to create the First Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, which states that if a function is
integrated and then differentiated the original function can be obtained because differentiation and integration are
inverse functions.
 Newton not only discovered calculus but he is also credited for the discovery of the generalized binomial theorem.
This theorem describes the algebraic expansion of powers of a binomial. He also contributed to the theory of
finite differences, he used fractional exponents and coordinate geometry to get solutions to Diophantine equations,
he developed a method for finding better approximation to the zeroes or roots of a function, and he was the first to
use infinite power series.

18th CENTURY MATHEMATICS

LEONHARD EULER (1707-1783)

  Mathematical notation

Euler introduced and popularized several notational conventions through his numerous and widely circulated
textbooks. Most notably, he introduced the concept of a function and was the first to write f(x) to denote the
function f applied to the argument x. He also introduced the modern notation for the trigonometric functions, the
letter e for the base of the natural logarithm (now also known as Euler's number), the Greek letter Σ for summations
and the letter i to denote the imaginary unit. The use of the Greek letter π to denote the ratio of a circle's
circumference to its diameter was also popularized by Euler, although it originated
with Welsh mathematician William Jones.

 Graph Theory

In 1735, Euler presented a solution to the problem known as the Seven Bridges of Königsberg. The city of
Königsberg, Prussia was set on the Pregel River, and included two large islands that were connected to each other and
the mainland by seven bridges. The problem is to decide whether it is possible to follow a path that crosses each
bridge exactly once and returns to the starting point. It is not possible: there is no Eulerian circuit. This solution is
considered to be the first theorem of graph theory, specifically of planar graph theory.

Euler also discovered the formula V-E+F=2 relating the number of vertices, edges and faces of a convex
polyhedron, and hence of a planar graph. The constant in this formula is now known as the Euler characteristic for the
graph (or another mathematical object), and is related to the genus of the object. The study and generalization of this
formula, specifically by Cauchy and L'Huilier, is at the origin of topology.

JOHANN AND JACOB BERNOULLI (BERNOULLI BROTHERS)

 One well known and topical problem of the day to which they applied themselves was that of designing a sloping
ramp which would allow a ball to roll from the top to the bottom in the fastest possible time. Johann Bernoulli
demonstrated through calculus that neither a straight ramp nor a curved ramp with a very steep initial slope were
optimal, but actually a less steep curved ramp known as a brachistochrone curve (a kind of upside-down cycloid,
similar to the path followed by a point on a moving bicycle wheel) is the curve of fastest descent.
 This application was an example of the “calculus of variations”, a generalization of infinitesimal calculus that the
Bernoulli brothers developed together, and has since proved useful in fields as diverse as engineering, financial
investment, architecture and construction, and even space travel. Johann also derived the equation for a catenary
curve, such as that formed by a chain hanging between two posts, a problem presented to him by his brother
Jacob.

19TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS

Most of the powerful abstract mathematical theories in use today originated in the 19th century. Both France and
Germany were caught up in the age of revolution which swept Europe in the late 18th Century, but the two
countries treated mathematics quite differently.

 France
- After the French Revolution, mathematics was given a prominent role, emphasized by Napoleon
- Use of math in military ambitions
- Mathematics should serve the scientific and technical needs of the state

 Germany
- Supported pure mathematics or detached from demands of state and military
- Under influence of Wilhelm von Humboldt

ÉVARISTE GALOIS

- A French republican that died in a duel at the young age of 20, but the work he published shortly before his
death made his name in mathematical circles
- He realized that the algebraic solution to a polynomial equation is related to the structure of a group of
permutations associated with the roots of the polynomial, the Galois group of the polynomial.
- Proved in the late 1820s that there is no general algebraic method for solving polynomial equations of any
degree greater than four, going further than the Norwegian Niels Henrik Abel
- Galois founded abstract algebra and group theory, which are fundamental to computer science, physics,
coding theory and cryptography.

CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS

 - Sometimes called as the “Prince of Mathematics” and “Greatest Mathematician since Antiquity”
- At the age of 7, he is reported to have amazed his teachers by summing the integers from 1 to 100 almost
instantly
- He is widely regarded as one of the three greatest mathematicians of all times, along with Archimedes and
Newton.
- Gauss’s first significant discovery, in 1792, was that a regular polygon of 17 sides can be constructed by ruler
and compass alone.

JANOS BOLYAI & NIKOLAI LOBACHEVSKY

- Bolyai is a Hungarian mathematician who became obsessed of Euclid’s fifth postulate or the parallel postulate
to such an extent that his father warned him that it may take up all his time and deprive him of his "health,
peace of mind and happiness in life"

o Fifth Postulate - If a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side
less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are
the angles less than the two right angles.

- Bolyai published his theories concerning Euclid’s troublesome “Fifth postulate” as an Appendix, “The
Science of Absolute Space: Independent of the Truth or Falsity of Euclid’s Axiom XI

- Bolyai and Lobachevsky had laid the foundation of non-Euclidean geometry — a wholly novel way of
apprehending space and without it, Einstein couldn’t have revolutionized our understanding of the universe
with his notion of spacetime

- Lobachevsky is a Russian mathematician who had been working to develop a geometry in which Euclid’s
fifth postulate did not apply

- Lobachevsky gave the first public exposition of the ideas of non-Euclidean geometry in his paper “On the
principles of geometry.”

BERNHARD RIEMANN

- German Mathematician who developed a type of non-Euclidean geometry, different to the hyperbolic
geometry of Bolyai and Lobachevsky, which has come to be known as elliptic geometry.

- He went on to develop Riemannian geometry, which unified and vastly generalized the three types of
geometry, as well as the concept of a manifold or mathematical space, which generalized the ideas of curves
and surfaces

GEORGE BOOLE

- Boole came to see logic as principally a discipline of mathematics, rather than of philosophy.

- Determined to find a way to encode logical arguments into a language that could be manipulated and solved
mathematically, he came up Boolean algebra.

o Boolean Algebra - The three most basic operations of this algebra were AND, OR and NOT, which Boole
saw as the only operations necessary to perform comparisons of sets of things, as well as basic
mathematical functions.

GEORG CANTOR

- A Russian mathematician professor who developed the set theory which led him to the conclusion that there
are infinities of different sizes.

- Cantor's starting point was to say that, if it was possible to add 1 and 1, then it ought to be possible to add
infinity and infinity.
 - He realized that it was actually possible to add and subtract infinities, and that beyond what was normally
thought of as infinity existed another, larger infinity, and then other infinities beyond that

- He showed that there may be infinitely many sets of infinite numbers - an infinity of infinities - some bigger
than others

HENRI POINCARE

- Referred to as the “Last Universalist” as he was the last to adhere to an older conception of mathematics
- He was challenged in describing the shape of 3-dimensional universe but later on came up with the famous
Poincaré conjecture
o Poincare Conjecture - It asserts that, if a loop in that space can be continuously tightened to a point, in the
same way as a loop drawn on a 2-dimensional sphere can, then the space is just a three-dimensional
sphere.

MATHEMATICS IN 20th CENTURY

DAVID HILBERT

 A German mathematician who was one of the most influential and universal mathematician of 20th century.
 He discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory,
the calculus of variations, commutative algebra, algebraic number theory, the foundations of geometry, spectral
theory of operators and its application to integral equations, mathematical physics, and foundations of
mathematics (particularly proof theory).
 Has many mathematical terms named after him, including Hilbert space (an infinite dimensional Euclidean
space), Hilbert curves, the Hilbert classification and the Hilbert inequality, as well as several theorems.
 He enunciated a list of 23 research problems in 1900 at the International Mathematical Congress in Paris where he
surveyed nearly all the mathematics of his day and endeavored to set forth the problems he thought would be
significant for mathematicians in the 20th century.
 He was unfailingly optimistic about the future of Mathematics, never doubting that his 23 problems would soon
be solved and believing that there are absolute no unsolvable problems.

KURT GÖDEL

 An Austrian mathematician who was one of the most significant logicians in history and had an immense effect
upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century.
 He proved that within a formal system questions exist that are neither provable nor disprovable on the basis of the
axioms that define the system. This is known as Godel's Undecidability. Theorem.
 He also showed that in a sufficiently rich formal system in which decidability of all questions is required, there
will be contradictory statements. This is known as his Incompleteness Theorem.
 He showed that there are problems that cannot be solved by any set of rules or procedures; instead for these
problems one must always extend the set of axioms.

ALAN TURING

 A British mathematician who has since been acknowledged as one the most innovative and powerful thinkers of
the 20th century.
 He is also widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.
 He provided a constructive interpretation of Godel's results by placing them on an algorithmic foundation: There
are numbers and functions that cannot be computed by any logical machine.
 He invented Turing machine, a theoretical computing machine, to serve as an idealized model for mathematical
calculation.

ANDRÉ WEIL

 A French mathematician who was one of the most influential figures in mathematics during the 20th century.
 He made substantial contributions in many areas of mathematics, and was particularly animated by the idea of
discovering profound connections between algebraic geometry and number theory.
 He was a founding member, and de facto the early leader, of the influential Bourbaki group of French
mathematicians.
PAUL COHEN

 An American mathematician who was best known for his proofs that the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of
choice are independent from Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory.
 He awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 for his proof of the independence of the Continuum Hypothesis from the
other axioms of set theory.
 He is also known for working on the mathematical technique which is mostly called ‘forcing’.

JULIA ROBINSON

 An American mathematician who was one of the two most important logicians of the 20th century.
 She was the first woman to be elected to the mathematical section of the National Academy of Sciences, as well
as the first woman to be president of the American Mathematical Society.
 She had many important contributions to questions of algorithmic solvability and unsolvability of mathematical
problems, in particular for her part in the negative solution of Hilbert's "Tenth Problem."

YURI MATIYASEVICH

 A Russian mathematician who was best known for his negative solution of Hilbert's tenth
problem (Matiyasevich's theorem), which was presented in his doctoral thesis at LOMI (the Leningrad
Department of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics).
 He freely acknowledged his debt to Robinson’s work, and the two went on to work together on other problems
until Robinson’s death in 1984.

G.H. HARDY

 An English mathematician known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis.
 Hardy himself was a prodigy from a young age.
 His greatest service to mathematics in this early period was A course of pure mathematics, published in 1908.
 He was the mentor of the Indian mathematician genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan.

SRINAVASA RAMANUJAN

 An Indian mathematician who was one of India's greatest mathematical geniuses.

 Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical
analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems
then considered unsolvable.
 He seeks mathematician who could better understand his work.
 He conjectured or proved over 3,000 theorems, identities and equations, including properties of highly composite
numbers, the partition function and its asymptotics and mock theta functions.
 “the one romantic incident in my life”

BERTRAND RUSSELL

 A British mathematician and with his contributions to logic, epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics
established him as one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th century.
 He conceived the idea of demonstrating that mathematics not only had logically rigorous foundations but also that
it was in its entirety nothing but logic.

ALFRED WHITEHEAD

 A British mathematician and philosopher best known for his work in mathematical logic and the philosophy of
science.
 He collaborated with his more celebrated ex-student, Bertrand Russel, in the first decade of the 20th Century on
their monumental work, the “Principia Mathematica”.
 Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics
to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics.