[This course page is obsolete.  I'll update it next time I teach it.]

• General description. We will explore some major themes in mathematics--calculation, number, geometry, algebra, infinity, formalism--and their historical development in various civilizations, ranging from the antiquity of Babylonia and Egypt through classical Greece, the Middle and Far East, and on to modern Europe. We will see how the earlier civilizations influenced or failed to influence later ones and how the concepts evolved in these various civilizations.

  The earliest civilizations have left only archaeological and limited historical evidence that requires substantial interpretation. We have many mathematical treatises from the later civilizations, but these are usually in a completed form which leave out the development of the concepts and the purposes for which the mathematics was developed. Thus, we will have to analyze the arguments given by historians of mathematics for their objectivity and completeness.

  See also Clark's Academic Catalog

• Prerequisites. The prerequisite for this course is an intense interest in mathematics. There are no other prerequisites for it other than a familiarity with plane geometry and algebra. Our study will reach just to the beginnings of calculus since we won't have time in one semester for more.

• Course goals.
  • Content goals:
    • follow the development of mathematics from early number systems to the invention of calculus
    • read and understand some historical mathematics
    • survey the development and use of methods of computation, some of which involve tools such as the abacus
    • study the mathematics of various different civilizations, their conception and use of mathematics, and how the historical conditions of those civilizations affected and were affected by mathematics
  • Historical perspective goals:
    • develop your capacity to understand the contemporary world in the larger framework of tradition and history
    • focus on the problems of interpreting the past and can also deal with the relationship between past and present
    • introduce students to the ways scholars think critically about the past, present and future
  • Other goals:
    • Develop your ability to present mathematics and history in spoken and written forms
    • Help you practice research skills
    • Satisfy, in part, your curiosity of how mathematics developed and how it fits into culture

• Course objectives.
  When you have finished this course you should be able to:
  • describe the development of various areas of mathematics within and across various civilizations
  • describe the changing character of mathematics over time and recognize the distinction between formal and intuitive mathematics
  • give examples of significant applications of mathematics to commerce, science, and general life, past and present
  • understand that history includes the interpretion the past, not just facts
  • better research historical questions and present your conclusions to others

• Course Hours. MWF 9:00-9:50.

• Office hours. Semester schedule.

• Assignments, tests, and presentation/paper. You will do assignments every week or two from the text, and you'll take two tests. You will select, research, and present a topic of your choice. Your presentation will be a 15 to 20 minute class presentation accompanied by a 10 to 20 page paper.

• Course grade. 1/7 for assignments, 2/7 for each test, 2/7 for the presentation/paper.

Syllabus

The chapters refer to our text, A History of Mathematics, an Introduction by Victor J. Katz, Addison-Wesley, third edition, 2009. Addison-Wesley. Cloth, 992 pp. ISBN-10: 0321387007, ISBN-13: 9780321387004. Supplementary material will be included for those subjects of primary interest.

• Course overview
• Chapter 1: Egypt and Mesopotamia
  • Egypt: number system, multiplication and division, unit fractions, the Egyptian 2/n table, linear equations and the method of false position, geometry.
  • Mesopotamia: sexagesimal (base 60) system and cuneiform notation, arithemetic, Babylonian multiplication table, Babylonian reciprocal table, elementary geometry, the Pythagorean theorem, Plimpton 322 tablet, square roots, quadratic equations, tokens of preliterate Mesopotamia.
• Chapter 2: The beginnings of mathematics in Greece
  • The earliest Greek mathematics: various Greek numerals, Thales, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, difficult construction problems
  • Plato and Aristotle: logic, magnitudes, Zeno's paradoxes
• Chapter 3: Euclid's Elements.
  See http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.html with dragable figures, and a quick trip of the Elements
  • Book I: Basic plane geometry through the Pythagorean theorem
  • Book II: Geometric algebra and related constructions
  • Book III: Intermediate plane geometry and the study of circles
  • Book IV: Constructions of regular polygons
  • Book V: The theory of ratio and proportions of magnitudes
  • Book VI: Similar plane figures
  • Books VII-IX: Number theory
  • Book X: The theorey of irrational magnitudes
  • Books XI-XIII: Solid geometry, the method of exhaustion, constructions of regular polyhedra
• Chapter 4: Archimedes
  • The law of the lever, approximation of pi, sums of series
  • Rational approximations to irrationals
• Chapter 5: Mathematical methods in Hellenistic times
  • Astronomy before Ptolemy, Cosmology and astronomy
  • Early trigonometry, History of Trigonometry
  • Ptolemy and the Almagest
  • Practical mathematics, Heron, Ptolemy's Geography
• Chapter 6: The final chapters of Greek mathematics
  • Diophantus and Greek algebra, Pappus and analysis
• Chapter 7: Ancient and medieval China
  See also Outline of Mathematics in China
  • Number symbols, rod numerals, fractions
  • Geometry: areas and volumes, the Pythagorean theorem, similar triangles
  • Algebra: simultaneous linear equations, arithmetic triangle, solving polynomial equations.
  • Indeterminate analysis and the Chinese remainder theorem finding one
• Chapter 8: Ancient and medieval India
  See also Outline of Mathematics in India
  • The Hindu-Arabic place-value system and arithmetic
  • Geometry
  • Equations and indeterminate analysis
  • Combinatorics
  • Trigonometry, Aryabata's trig table
• Chapter 9: The mathematics of Islam
  • Decimal arithmetic
  • Algebra: quadratic equations, powers of the unknown, arithmetic triangle, cubic equations
  • Combinatorics
  • Geometry: parallel postulate, trigonometry
• Chapter 10: Mathematics in medieval Europe
  • Translations from Arabic into Latin in the 12th and 13th centuries
  • Summary of early mathematics in western Europe
  • Combinatorics
  • The mathematics of kinematics: velocity, the Merton theorem, Oresme's fundamental theorem of calculus
• Chapter 11: Mathematics around the world
  • Mathematics at the turn of the fourteenth century
  • Mathematics in America, Africa, and the Pacific
• Chapter 12: Algebra in the renaissance
  • The Italian abacists, algebra in France, Germany, England , and Portugal
  • The solution of the cubic equation
  • Early development of symbolic algebra: Viéte and Stevin
• Chapter 13: Mathematical methods in the renaissance
  • Perspective, geography and navigation, astronomy and trigonometry, logarithms, kinematics
• Chapter 14: Geometry, algebra, and probability in the seventeenth century
  • The theory of equations
  • Analytic geometry: coordinates, equations of curves
  • Eementary probability
  • Number theory
  • Projective geometry
• Chapter 12: The beginnings of calculus
  • Tangents and extrema, areas and volumes, power series, rectification of curves and the fundamental theorem of calculus
• Chapter 13: Newton and Leibniz
  • Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, and the first calculus texts

Class notes, quizzes, tests, homework assignments

• Course overview
• Assignments
  Presentation
• Goddard Library's LibGuide for Math 105: History of Mathematics
• Tests
  Test 1. Answers.
  Test 2. Answers.

This page is located on the web at

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/ma105/

David E. Joyce,