There is a commonly held modern view that a handful of Greeks from the sixth and fifth century B.C were the pioneer of modern science. It is undoubtedly true that they attempted to explain natural phenomena in nonreligious and rational ways and coined technical terms for them, and they passed their scientific ideological knowledge to […]
The 13th Century Italian Leonardo Pisano was perhaps the most talented European mathematician of the Middle Ages. But we little know about his real name, as he is best known by his nickname Fibonacci. This would come as a surprise to Leonardo himself, that he has been immortalized in the famous sequence – 0, 1, […]
We all who know even a little bit about mathematics, have heard the name ‘Pythagoras’ and his famous theorem ‘Pythagoras’ theorem’. He is often called the first ‘true’ mathematician and it is probably true that we owe pure mathematics to Pythagoras. Although his contribution was undoubtedly important, he remains a controversial personality in the mathematician community. […]
Egyptian Numerals: In my previous article we discussed an overview of the Ancient Egyptian mathematics : Part I where we saw a glimpse of the only evidences we have : The Rhind and Moscow papyri. We will discuss more detailed analysis of these evidences. But in order to truly understand Egyptian Mathematics, it is important to […]
An Overview: The early Egyptians settled along the fertile Nile valley as early as about 6000 BC, 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, […]
JavaScript – The world’s most misunderstood programming language. JavaScript, also known as Mocha, or LiveScript, or JScript, or ECMAScript, is one of the world’s most popular programming languages. Virtually every personal computer in the world has at least one JavaScript interpreter installed on it and in active use. Despite its popularity, few know that JavaScript […]
In ancient times, “Chinese mathematics”, was defined as the “art of calculation” (Suan chu). Mathematics, or the art of calculation, was both practical and spiritual. It covered a wide range of subjects; from religion and astronomy to water control and administration. Today speakers of Chinese use three written numeral systems: the system of Arabic numerals […]
We heard the claim from one European reader that “The Arab world invented the zero, and it’s been downhill ever since.” And hence the name ‘Arabic Numerals’. This is false, but unfortunately not an uncommon mistake. Our numeral system dates back to India during the post-Roman era, but it came to Europe via the medieval […]
Within the history of mathematics, the eighteenth century itself is commonly known as ‘The Age of Euler’ in recognition of the tremendous contributions that Euler made to mathematics during this period. The famous paper written by him on the Seven Bridges of Königsberg published in 1736 is considered as the first paper in the history […]
Sometime in the 5th century B.C. the Greek philosopher Hippasus of Metapontum, a member of the secretive Pythagorean brotherhood, left his home in southern Italy and boarded a seagoing ship. We do not know why Hippasus was traveling or where he was journeying, but we do know he didn’t make it. According to the legend, […]
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