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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Over the course of these past few weeks we have learned all sorts of math that we will utilize in our everyday lives. They have all been very interesting; my favorite subjects were learning about how voting works and how to calculate owning a home. For our final math project in our math modeling class, we had to choose a topic that interested us yet had something to do with mathematics. For this presentation, I decided to research the history of math and art and how the two have been used together to create amazing artwork.
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Between 1850 and 1900, the mathematics and physics fields began advancing. The advancements involved extremely arduous calculations and formulas that took a great deal of time when done manually.
They constructed the 12-month calendar which they based on the cycles of the moon. Other than that, they also created a mathematical system based on the number 60 which they called the Sexagesimal. Though, our mathematics today is not based on their system it acts like a foundation for some mathematicians. They also used the basic mathematics- addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, in keeping track of their records- one of their contributions to this world, bookkeeping. It was also suggested that they even discovered the number of the pi for they knew how to solve the circumference of the circle (Atif, 2013).
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The history of math has become an important study, from ancient to modern times it has been fundamental to advances in science, engineering, and philosophy. Mathematics started with counting. In Babylonia mathematics developed from 2000B.C. A place value notation system had evolved over a lengthy time with a number base of 60. Number problems were studied from at least 1700B.C. Systems of linear equations were studied in the context of solving number problems.