Arc Daniel Casakit Cabrera

2021-00125
cabrera.arcdaniel@dnsc.edu.ph
 “Study the past if you would define the future”. This was the
statement of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, that gave me the interest of
studying history, particularly on the field that I truly love — Mathematics.
Since I was a kid, I always like to ask the questions: how and why.
My young mind often thinks like a curious child that wanted to discover how
things operate and why are they used in particular ways. Maybe because it is in
my innate nature to study processes in order for me to cultivate new ideas or
even create something from it. Two of the silly but deep questions that I came up
was how did the early humans perceived in their mind that one plus one is equal
to two? How are they able to contain in their minds the fundamental mathematics
that we know today? Little by little, those kinds of questions hooked me in
studying the History of Mathematics.
It was a great privilege to be able to study this subject in my college
life. In addition to that, it was an honor for me to be the first one to present the
topics under the History of Mathematics. As I was preparing for my report, I felt
so excited in unveiling the mysteries of my questions before and when I started
reading articles about the mathematics in ancient Egypt, I was completely in awe.
I realized one thing: the ancient people were no fools about math.
With this, I wondered how did the ancient people developed
mathematical thinking? Merzbach and Boyer (2011) stated in their book, A
History of Mathematics: Third Edition, that the development of language was
essential to the rise of abstract mathematical thinking. It led me to the Ancient
Egyptian’s very own Hieroglyphics: the formal writing system that they had used
where traces of language were found. As I was studying about their number
system that was inscribed in the hieroglyphs, my mind was thinking how much
effort that Jean-Francois Champollion, a French philologist, exerted just to
decipher all the symbols and characters in the hieroglyphs? Moreover, as I was
reading the transcription and able to understand the messages that are behind
those characters and symbols, I have realized that knowing how the ancient
Egyptians think about numbers would open me the doors of ideas about
perceiving mathematical concepts in a way that it could evolve and develop just
like what Ahmes, an Egyptian scribe, did when he wrote the mathematical
problems in his papyrus. He used the Principle of Cipherization—giving each
numbers their own specific symbol and/or characters, which became one of the
factors that makes the number system that we are using in the present time to be
as effective as it is (Merzbach & Boyer, 2011). That is also the very moment that
I have realized how long it took and what processes it undergone before my
elders’ generation came to know the symbols and/or characters of the numbers
we know today. I have also internalized that this technology, the number system,
became part of our nature as time passes by. It is now a part of our everyday
lives like reading the clock, the prices of our goods, the contact numbers of our
loved ones, our grades etc., without noticing and realizing that before, it was
difficult to even recognize numbers. I cogitated for a minute and told myself that
the Ancient Egyptians truly did their part in the discovery, implementation, and
evolution of Mathematics.
In addition to the number system, I was also impressed on how the
Egyptians did their multiplication and division and how they wrote their fractions.
Katz (2008), explained in his book that the Egyptian algorithm for multiplication
was based on a continual doubling process. What made me so intrigued about it
is the fact it is done by only having the ability to multiply by 2, and to add. On the
other side of the coin, since division is the inverse of multiplication, they will just
simply reverse the process. Meanwhile, with regards to their fractions, they
viewed them as sums of unit fractions; a different approach compared to how we
deal fractions today. I have reflected so much about it of course. The fact that
they did it that way before and now we can even do it mentally is a proof that the
idea undergone the process of improvement and that the human mind developed
and perceived those mathematical concepts before in a higher and efficient
approach today. We even now have calculators to deal fractions and to multiply
and divide larger units—also a manifestation that the utilization of man to the
science of mathematical concepts gave birth to the mathematical technology
which then helped the present world in understanding and developing math in a
more convenient way.
All these endeavors will not be possible if the following generations
next to the ancient ones did not study and teach to their kids the history of the
mathematics that they’ve been using. If they were not able to pass their
knowledge of their mathematical systems and concepts to the next generations,
the cycle of idea would stop and will soon turn to oblivion and thus, new
discoveries will belong to the definition of the word: “impossible”, making our lives
to be like in the ancient times. In my opinion, that is the very reason why there is
a need in teaching the History of Mathematics.
History of mathematics is a scientific field which explains the
journey of mathematical knowledge and the people who formed this knowledge
throughout civilizations (Baki, 2014). In the present time, there many other
arguments that would support that teaching the history of mathematics is a must.
Radford (2014) stated in his study that history of mathematics, amidst the
intensifying divide between mathematics and mathematics education research,
may serve as a bridge across them. He also cited in his study the argument of
Furinghetti (2007) that the history of mathematics gives a unique window through
which teachers’ beliefs about mathematical concepts and mathematics itself can
be made explicit and turned into possibilities of conceptual growth and
development, which is beneficial to students like us, and future math educators
like me and my classmates, for it is up to us to grow the knowledge that was
planted through studying and teaching the history of mathematics for the
establishment of future ideas and soon available knowledge and concepts.
On the other hand, History of Mathematics proved itself in various
studies about its big contribution, especially in teaching mathematics. In fact,
History of Mathematics has been considered an attractive resource for teaching
mathematics with arguments such as contextualizing and problematizing
concepts, stimulating reading, humanizing mathematics, etc., (Lemes, 2019)
which increased the importance of teaching it. If mathematics is important, so is
its history! Moreover, Başibüyük and Sahin (2019) introduced the help of history
of mathematics in developing philosophy in a mathematical thought. In their
study, they emphasized that History of mathematics helps the formation of a
certain philosophy in the mathematical thought system and achievement of a
depth understanding in various issues. They also cited in their study the
statement of Marshall and Rich (2000) that said: while history of mathematics
tells us the knowledge in the past periods, it also guides to how we can improve
the existing mathematical knowledge. In addition to that, in the same study they
emphasized the citation from Cajori (1999) that the history of mathematics should
be focused on carefully because the thought structure of those who dealt with
mathematics in the ancient times makes us face our wrongs today. Other
contribution of teaching the history of mathematics based on Başibüyük and
Sahin’s research are the development of: mathematical reasoning, high
motivation, understanding about the philosophy of mathematics, and connections
to the other disciplines of mathematics.
Because of these arguments, teaching the history of mathematics
is undeniably a must. By seeing mathematics in a historical perspective, we can
create a blueprint of our future. The reward of studying it is manifested in the
present time. Look how we develop exponentially in the field of mathematics
which then applied to our technology and led us to the new discoveries, this is
because we looked back to our past. This is because of our silly questions about
how and why. This is because we want to define our future by digging deeply to
the past.
 References

Azzolino, A. (2010). Ancient Egyptian Multiplication, Division, Root Extraction—

Computation. Retrieved on: August 27,2021. Retrieved from:
www.mathnstuff.com/math/spoken/here/2class/60/egyptm.htm.

Baki, A. (2014). Matematik tarihi ve felsefesi. Ankara: Pegem Akademi

Yayıncılık.

Başibüyük, K. & Şahin, Ö. (2019). Mathematics Teachers’ Opinion about the

History of Mathematics. Acta Didactica Napocensia, 12(2), 117-
132, DOI: 10.24193/adn.12.2.9.

Cajori, F. (1999). A history of mathematics (Vol. 303). American Mathematical

Soc.

Furinghetti, F. (2007). Teacher education through the history of mathematics.

Educational Studies in Mathematics, 66, 131–143.

Katz, V. J. (2009). A history of mathematics: An introduction. Boston: Addison-

Wesley.

Lemes, A. J., (2019). Potentialities of the History of Mathematics in the training of

mathematics teachers. p.1. retrieved on: September 01, 2021
retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336775636.

Marshall, L. G., & Rich, M. (2000). The role history in a mathematics class.
Mathematics Teacher, 93(8), 704-706.

Merzbach, U., Boyer, C. (2011). A History of Mathematics Third Edition. John

Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. pp. 8-11.

Radford, L. (2014). Reflections on History of Mathematics: History of

Mathematics and Mathematics Education. Research Gate. Chapter
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