The period 213 BCE to 1425 CE, are characterized by the beginning of a gradual ceasing of the isolation of China and India to the outside world. Due to natural boundaries (mountains, seas and deserts) providing the isolation, mathematics in India and China were almost developed independently during the ancient era. It was the Silk Road, began during the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), that opened up communication between the West and Southern and Eastern Asia. With this communication, cultures and ideas moved, including mathematical knowledge, allowing undiscovered concepts to enter and discovered concepts to be leave, developed elsewhere and re-enter further advanced. One thing we can be sure is that by the opening of our period, mathematics has already been discovered in both places and were well underway in development.
The first year of the period, 213 BCE, is infamous for Emperor Shi-huang’s command for the burning of all books not officially sanctioned in the Qin Empire. As a result, it is difficult to obtain precise record of mathematics during the Qin dynasty. However, we do see some of the greatest endeavours in human history in the building of the terracotta army’s tomb and the Great Wall of China, both of which require advanced mathematical knowledge, especially geometrical formulas, to architect. This proves that constructional mathematics reached a new unparalleled height in the world at the time. In the attempt to unite the conquered states under the Qin empire, standard weight system was also implemented empire-wide. Meanwhile in India, we see what is referred to as Jaina mathematics period. Whereas ancient time Indian mathematics was mostly intended to build for religious and ritualistic purposes, Jaina mathema...
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...Retrieved from University of St. Andrews Web site: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Nine_chapters.html
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In historic times; math was well known for helping Egyptian people keep track of their property, money, taxes, livestock, land and sometimes people. Math did indeed help the Egyptian community and their king by building pyramids, tombs, art crafts, and using math to solve the flood on Nile Valley. Egypt was striving for a new era to come along with their mathematical achievement.
The Aztecs also used mathematics for astronomy. Kind of amazing right? Although most of their information in math astronomy was lost there is a pretty good synthesis of the remaining information in the book “Skywatchers” by Anthony Aveni. For example the Aztecs calculated that the cycle of Venus was 584 days. The aztecs even did the math to workout out the eclipse season although they didn’t know the shape of the earth or the size. Even though they figured out when
I have written on the mathematics of Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) La Divina Commedia: "Conquest of Genesis: A Study In Universal Creation Mathematics", published by the Edwin Mellen Press, 1998
Muslims revived the indian number system. In the 9th century, Al-Khwarzimi wrote a textbook about algebra(al-jabr in arabic). This textbook was translated into latin and used by the europeans later on. Algebra lets use advanced calculations and solve problems every day.
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In conclusion, it is clear that while their ancient civilization perished long ago, the contributions that the Egyptians made to mathematics have lived on. The Egyptians were practical in their approach to mathematics, and developed arithmetic and geometry in response to transactions they carried out in business and agriculture on a daily basis. Therefore, as a civilization that created hieroglyphs, the decimal system, and hieratic writing and numerals, the contributions of the Egyptians to the study of mathematics cannot and should not be overlooked.
The 17th Century saw Napier, Briggs and others greatly extend the power of mathematics as a calculator science with his discovery of logarithms. Cavalieri made progress towards the calculus with his infinitesimal methods and Descartes added the power of algebraic methods to geometry. Euclid, who lived around 300 BC in Alexandria, first stated his five postulates in his book The Elements that forms the base for all of his later Abu Abd-Allah ibn Musa al’Khwarizmi, was born abo...