HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY

OF MATHEMATICS

HISTORY
a chronological record of significant
events (as affecting a nation or
institution)
often
including
an
explanation of their causes
a branch of knowledge that records
and explains past events
events of the past

PHILOSOPHY

a search for the total human meaning

of mans existence and experience

the knowledge of things by their

ultimate causes or reasons (Aristotle)

HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
The area of study known as the
history
of
mathematics
is
primarily an investigation into the
origin of discoveries in mathematics
and, to a lesser extent, an
investigation into the mathematical
methods and notations of the past.

PHILOSOPHY OF
MATHEMATICS
The philosophy of mathematics plays an
important role in analytic philosophy, both
as a subject of inquiry in its own right,
and as an important landmark in the
broader
philosophical
landscape.
Mathematical knowledge has long been
necessary and certain, so giving an account
of mathematical knowledge is an important
part of epistemology.

SEATWORK:
1. Why is it important to study the
history of Mathematics?
2. Do you think there are still
undiscovered things in the history
of math?Explain.

HISTORY and PHILOSOPHY of

MATHEMATICS

Prehistoric Times
Sumerian/Babylonian Mathematics
Egyptian Mathematics
Greek Mathematics
Hellenistic Mathematics
Roman Mathematics
Mayan Mathematics
Chinese Mathematics

PREHISTORIC TIMES (STONE

AGE)
PALEOLITHIC AGE

often referred to as the Old

Stone Age
no permanent places to live;
lived in caves and made
temporary homes by using
plants and animal skins to
make tents
more preoccupied with
looking for food in order to
survive
Made weapons for hunting like
daggers and spears made of
stones, bones, or sticks

NEOLITHIC AGE

often referred to as the

New Stone Age
marked with changes from
crude ways of doing things
to a more refined from
developed farming, tamed
wild animals, and working
with metals; and
established villages
developed ideas of trade,
private property, and
quantity

ANCIENT BABYLONIA
The Sumerians had developed an
abstract form of writing based on
cuneiform (wedge-shaped) symbols.
Their symbols were written on wet clay
tablets which are baked in the hot sun
and many thousands of these tablets
have survived to this day. It was the use
of stylus on a clay medium that led to
the use of cuneiform symbols since
curved lines could not be drawn.

ANCIENT BABYLONIA
The later Babylonians adopted the
same style of cuneiform writing on clay
tablets. They had an advanced number
system, in some ways more advanced
than our present systems. It was a
positional system with a base of 60
rather than the system with base 10 in
widespread use today.

ANCIENT BABYLONIA
The Babylonians divided the day into 24
hours, each hour into 60 minutes, each
minute into 60 seconds. This form of
counting has survived for 4000 years.
To write 5h 25 30, is just to write the
sexagesimal fraction, 5 25/60 30/3600.

ANCIENT BABYLONIA
Sexagesimal (base-sixty) originated with
ancient
Sumerians
(2000
BC),
transmitted to Babyloniansstill used for
measuring time, angles and geographic
coordinates.

ANCIENT BABYLONIA
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of
Babylonians calculating skills was their
construction of tablets to aid calculation.
Two tablets found at Senkerah on the
Euphrates in 1854 dated from 2000 BC.
They give squares of the numbers up to
59 and cubes of the numbers up to 32.