Crest of the Peacock

Upon reading this extract, I was especially inspired by the flow of events and knowledge that circulated our world of mathematics today. The three things that stood out to me most were: 

1. In our education system today, we tend to ignore historical facts from all cultures and countries in certain academic disciplines, especially mathematics. Most of the figures found in the text illustrate how we have evidence that suggests mathematics has been a contributable subject from many regions and dates back to 800 - 500 BC with the Sulbasultras. Steering us away from the Eurocentric viewpoint we typically engage within our curriculums. 

2. Majority of the ending of the chapter focused on the Mayan civilization. I found it interesting that they were more than 12,000miles away from Babylon, but produced a similar numerical system consisting of similar symbols. However, instead of using a base 60 system as discussed in our previous classes, they were the founders of the number zero and simply denoted this number from scratch. What is so mind-boggling to think about is that without the creation of the number zero, calculus would have never been created and thus, engineering would have been non-existent either. They were able to use this base zero systems in their astronomical work such as estimating lunar and planetary movements to develop their calendar. 

3. Lastly, I want to emphasize how provoking it is to know scholars travelled around the world to a meeting place to learn and yet also teach their findings. The extract mentioned how Pythagoras travelled from Egypt to India where he studied under Hindu sages which jumpstarted his research on interpreting dreams and also inspired him to introduce Pythagoras' theorem to the Greeks as both the Indians and Babylonians had been using the theorem long before it was adopted by the European system. 

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  1. Amanda FritzlanSeptember 24, 2020 at 3:20 PM

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  2. Amanda FritzlanSeptember 24, 2020 at 3:31 PM

    Lovely post Margot! The sharing of knowledge between mathematics scholars at a time when travel was complicated is fascinating. And the development, or existence of zero is fascinating too. I recently read an article in Scientific America about bees understanding the concept of zero!

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