A Brief History: Mathematical Development
INPG 353
Jacob Knight
7 Periods of Development
Proto- Mathematics
Ancient Mathematics
Middle-Age Mathematics
Classical Mathematics
Pre-Modern Mathematics
01
02
04
05
03
06
07
Modern Mathematics
Post-Modern Mathematics
Proto-Mathematics
01
40,000 BCE - 2,000 BCE
40,000 BCE
2,000 BCE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
By recognizing It is important to recognize where mathematics started to better appreciate the beauty of its growth over time.
Proto-Mathematics
40,000 BCE
2,000 BCE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
This artifact implies that people were thinking mathematically as far back as 35,000 BCE and gives us a good idea of the type and scope of mathematics that these people were doing.
Lebombo Bone
35,000
40,000 BCE
2,000 BCE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
This bone gives us further evidence of the type and scope of their mathematical practices. We can use this as a later reference to see the growth and development of the field.
Ishango Bone
25,000
40,000 BCE
2,000 BCE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Now, these artifacts are important since they display the depth of Mathematics during this period. Also, the Sumerian development of the base-60 number system is still used today in how we track time.
Mesopotamian Accounting Tokens, Sumerian Multiplication Tables, and Mesopotamian Tablets
2,700
3,200
2,600
4,000
Ancient Mathematics
02
2,000 BCE - 800 BCE
2,000 BCE
800 BCE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
This period marks a significant advancement in mathematical understanding since abstracting numbers and figures is a key aspect of later mathematics such as calculus. In addition, the advanced civilizations of the time were able to apply their understanding of mathematics to develop other fields like astronomy, land surveying, and construction.
Ancient Mathematics
2,000 BCE
800 BCE
Critical Details:
could use Pythagorean Triples as well as construct right triangles. (1750 BCE & 1,800 BCE)
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
The Babylonian tablets reveal much about their understanding of mathematics, and in particular, they give further context to what we now consider the Pythagorean Theorem. It is important to recognize that the Babylonians were using Pythagorean triples 1000 years before Pythagoras became known for further developing this concept. Granted the formality at which the Babylonians were using these concepts is less sophisticated than those in the classical era, but it can be argued that without their early development of these ideas, then Greeks like Pythagoras would not have been able to further them hundreds of years later.
Babylonians
1,800
1,750
1,600
2,000 BCE
800 BCE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
The evidence of Egyptian Knowledge furthers our conception that many of the Theorems and Processes that we use today were not created at one time but rather build upon and sophisticated from more basic forms. In particular, the Egyptians give us further evidence of the development of the Pythagorean theorem.
Egyptians
1,550
1,420
Classical Mathematics
03
800 BCE - 300 CE
800 BCE
300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
This is the period where a majority of the ideas that had been floating around being used by all different groups became more formalized and information was spread between many disjoint groups. However, at this time there was no way for the world’s countries and nations to communicate quickly and effectively with one another. This is why it required additional time for ideas to correlate and coalesce into the more unified mathematics that we know today.
Classical Mathematics
800 BCE
300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
The Pythagorean theorem continues to be fundamental for our geometry today, so we are lucky that Pythagoras compiled the ideas that drove the relationship used by Babylonians, Egyptians, and other peoples so that we can teach it and understand it nowadays.
Pythagoras
570
495
800 BCE
300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Since this academy served as a hub for knowledge, the members were able to develop concepts through collaboration and spread math and science topics. In addition, they began to formalize the different methods and concepts that had been developed in both math and science.
387
Platonic Academy of Athens is Established
(i.e. Plato’s School of Athens)
800 BCE
300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Euclid is perhaps the most important person from the Classical period of Mathematics. He is the reason why we can consider this period axiomatics, and his Euclidean geometry is our standard geometry to this day.
Euclid
325
265
800 BCE
300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Although it isn’t discussed as often as European mathematics, Chinese mathematics was on the same level as and perhaps more advanced in some areas. We must recognize that mathematics today was not developed from one source or only from one area and rather is an amalgamation of various cultures and civilizations all putting their work together.
China
300
200
800 BCE
300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Hipparchus may be considered the father of trigonometry, but it is important to recognize that his trigonometry was connected to astronomy. This is not to take away from his contribution but rather puts his work into further context.
Hipparchus
190
120
Middle-Age Mathematics
04
300 CE - 1,300 CE
300 CE
1,300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
This period’s advancement in algebra and arithmetic resembles the advancement made in Geometry during the Classical Period. Mainly, the modern notation for algebraic expression solutions was developed and formed into an algorithmic process. This algorithm was then applied to astronomy, engineering, and commerce.
Middle-Age Mathematics
300 CE
1,300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Operations with zero and negative numbers are vital for our modern algebraic system to function without issue. Thus, his work in this field allowed later mathematicians to compile formalized operations into what we now know as algebra.
Brahmagupta
598
668
300 CE
1,300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
We notice that Al-Khwarizmi did not come up with all the rules for algebra on his own and rather compiled the work of previous and current mathematicians along with some of his knowledge of the subject to define and form the first standardized form of a field of mathematics that is fundamental to our modern mathematics.
Al-Khwarizmi
780
850
300 CE
1,300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
He was able to build off the works of Brahmagupta to develop a deeper understanding of zero and negative numbers when at the time not many people were comfortable operating with either of them. This allowed him to contribute to the beginning of the development of Calculus.
Bhaskara II
1,114
1,185
300 CE
1,300 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Fibonacci was able to merge both Arabic and European culture by popularizing Arabic numerals in Europe. In addition, his book helped spread ideas involving number sequencing which is important now for sequences, series, and computer summations.
Fibonacci
1,175
1,250
300 CE
1,300 CE
Nasir al-Din Tusi
1201
1274
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Tusi’s work on Trigonometry differed from those in the past which allowed the field to develop in its own right. Tusi’s Trigonometry more closely resembles our modern-day trig than Hipparchus’ does which implies that Tusi’s contributions allowed trig to develop to a point that is more useful for us in the field of mathematics.
Pre-Modern Mathematics
05
1,300 CE - 1,685 CE
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
This was the first point in time where the most advanced field of classical geometry came into contact with other fields such as algebra to begin to create new fields that would last into the modern and Post-modern era. These new fields would lead to further development and study in the discipline of mathematics and ultimately result in a new birth for math.
Pre-Modern Mathematics
(Renaissance Mathematics)
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
He set the groundwork for Descartes’s future work in establishing the field of coordinate geometry. This means that he was a vital part of the merging of algebra and geometry.
Oresme
1,323
1,382
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Tartaglia aided in the spread of mathematical knowledge by translating the classical works of Archimedes and Euclid into Italian. Further, by diving into complex solutions, he set the stage for further development and study in the imaginary number system.
Tartaglia
1,499
1,557
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Cardano not only improves upon the mathematical methods that were being developed at the time (solving cubics) but also then tries to immediately share these ideas and spread them through his publication. This spread of information is critical for the continual development of the field.
Cardano
1,501
1,576
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Kepler contributed greatly to our new understanding of a heliocentric model of the universe as well as applied his new mathematical methods in Nova Stereometria Doliorum Vinariorum to determine the volume of various complicated solids of revolution such as wine barrels. Future scholars would incorporate these ideas into the creation of infinitesimal integral calculus.
Kepler
1,571
1,630
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
His advancements in the field of analytical geometry paved the way for Newton and Leibniz to develop calculus in the following decades. In addition, his work essentially merged the fields of geometry and algebra which had previously been quite disjoint.
Descartes
1,596
1,650
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
Critical Details:
b. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is a German mathematician and philosopher who lived from 1646 to 1716 CE
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
The two men’s contributions to the discipline of mathematics are almost indescribable; however, their significance doesn’t stop there. Newton’s laws went on to be the foundations for physics itself.
Newton/Leibniz
1,642
1,646
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
First, we must recognize that his solving techniques in differential equations continue to be used to this day. It is also important to recognize that although calculus was a relatively new field, he was able to expand on it and give room for further growth in Calculus and in mathematics itself.
Bernoulli
1,655
Modern Mathematics
06
1,685 CE - 1,950 CE
1,685 CE
1,950 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
By facing the challenges of the past along with additional issues that popped up as scholars worked in this period, mathematics was enriched and reworked so that new fields were discovered, old fields were formalized, and modern mathematics became more unified and abstract than before.
Modern Mathematics
(Enlightenment Mathematics)
1,685 CE
1,950 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
By utilizing much mathematical knowledge, Euler was able to take mathematics at this time to a new level. He combined analytical methods to solve number theory problems which resulted in a new field of analytic number theory. Further, his work on notation helped unify mathematics by developing a form of expression that a majority of the world latched onto.
Euler
1,783
1,707
1,685 CE
1,950 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
His reworking of previous mathematicians’ work helped him formalize the fields of calculus and analysis. This meant that there was now a version that could be both shared widely and taught in a standard way to students.
Cauchy
1,857
1,789
1,685 CE
1,950 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Riemann sums are now the basis today for teaching students about integration. In addition, through his work in the field of differential geometry, he was able to help lay the groundwork for general relativity.
Riemann
1,866
1,826
1,685 CE
1,950 CE
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Cantor’s set theory became the foundation for all mathematics moving forward. From it came the axioms that were necessary and sufficient for further advancement. In addition, he helped us differentiate between different sizes of infinity which opposed our view of infinity at the time.
Cantor
1,918
1,845
Post-Modern Mathematics
07
1,950 CE - Present
1,950 CE
Present
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Although mathematics has seemingly discarded its connection with the real world do not be fooled. At the heart of mathematics is this longing and yearning to understand the real world by first being able to represent it abstractly. This has contributed to further and further abstraction over time. This period reveals the power of our abstraction and how it has allowed us to develop a much more complex understanding than we had back in the age of proto-mathematics.
Post-Modern Mathematics
(Current Mathematics)
1,950 CE
Present
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Mandelbrot achieved one of his lifelong goals when working for IBM. He was able to create a graphical representation of fractals which is this visual representation of roughness or chaos. This not only displays how technology has allowed mathematics to advance but also displays how even though math is studying the abstract, at its core, we are trying to learn more about the real world. Also, his work helped lead to the development of the Julia set which I used last semester to graph fractals of my own.
Mandelbrot
1,980
1,950 CE
Present
Critical Details:
Mathematical and/or Scientific Significance:
Thurston represents just one of the several different types of mathematicians who exist to learn more about the world around them in different ways. This is a testament to how mathematics has expanded to such a point that no single person can know it all or be an expert on it all. Rather it takes many individuals doing specialized work in all mathematical fields to continue to advance in this discipline
Thurston
2,012
40,000 BCE
21,011 BCE
Present
Final Overlay View
21,011 BCE
2,000 BCE
800 BCE
300 BCE
1,300 CE
1,685 CE
1,950 CE
Thank You!
References
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Boyer, C. B. (2012). The history of the calculus and its conceptual development: (the concepts of the calculus). Dover Publications.
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References
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References
O'Connor, J., & Robertson, E. (1998). Fibonacci - Biography. Maths History. Retrieved May 2, 2022, from https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Fibonacci/
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References
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