SUMERIAN/BABYLONIAN

MATHEMATICS
Sumer (a region of Mesopotamia,
modern-day Iraq) was the
birthplace of writing, the wheel,
agriculture, the arch, the plow,
irrigation and many other
innovations, and is often referred
to as the Cradle of Civilization.
The Sumerians developed the
earliest known writing system - a
pictographic writing system
known as cuneiform script, using
wedge-shaped
characters
inscribed on baked clay tablets and this has meant that we
actually have more knowledge of
Clay
Cones
ancient
Sumerian
and Sumerian
Babylonian mathematics than of
early Egyptian
mathematics.
Indeed, we even have what appear to school exercises in arithmetic and geometric problems.
As in Egypt, Sumerian mathematics initially developed largely as a response to bureaucratic
needs when their civilization settled and developed agriculture (possibly as early as the 6th
millennium BC) for the measurement of plots of land, the taxation of individuals, etc. In
addition, the Sumerians and Babylonians needed to describe quite large numbers as they
attempted to chart the course of the night sky and develop their sophisticated lunar calendar.
They were perhaps the first people to assign symbols to groups of objects in an attempt to make
the description of larger numbers easier. They moved from using separate tokens or symbols to
represent sheaves of wheat, jars of oil, etc, to the more abstract use of a symbol for specific
numbers of anything. Starting as early as the 4th millennium BC, they began using a small clay
cone to represent one, a clay ball for ten, and a large cone for sixty. Over the course of the third
millennium, these objects were replaced by cuneiform equivalents so that numbers could be
written with the same stylus that was being used for the words in the text. A rudimentary model
of the abacus was probably in use in Sumeria from as early as 2700 - 2300 BC.

Sumerian
and
Babylonian
mathematics was based on a
sexegesimal, or base 60, numeric
system, which could be counted
physically using the twelve
knuckles on one hand the five
fingers on the other hand. Unlike
those
of
theEgyptians, Greeks and Roman
s, Babylonian numbers used a
true place-value system, where
digits written in the left column
represented larger values, much
as in the modern decimal system,
although of course using base 60
not base 10. Thus,
in the Babylonian
Numerals
Babylonian system represented
3,600 plus 60 plus 1, or 3,661.
Also, to represent the numbers 1 - 59 within each place value, two distinct symbols were used, a
unit symbol ( ) and a ten symbol ( ) which were combined in a similar way to the familiar
system ofRoman numerals (e.g. 23 would be shown as
). Thus,
represents 60 plus
23, or 83. However, the number 60 was represented by the same symbol as the number 1 and,
because they lacked an equivalent of the decimal point, the actual place value of a symbol often
had to be inferred from the context.
It has been conjectured that Babylonian advances in mathematics were probably facilitated by
the fact that 60 has many divisors (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 and 60 - in fact, 60 is the
smallest integer divisible by all integers from 1 to 6), and the continued modern-day usage of of
60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 (60 x 6) degrees in a circle, are all
testaments to the ancient Babylonian system. It is for similar reasons that 12 (which has factors
of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6) has been such a popular multiple historically (e.g. 12 months, 12 inches, 12
pence, 2 x 12 hours, etc).
The Babylonians also developed another revolutionary mathematical concept, something else
that theEgyptians, Greeks and Romans did not have, a circle character for zero, although its
symbol was really still more of a placeholder than a number in its own right.
We have evidence of the development of a complex system of metrology in Sumer from about
3000 BC, and multiplication and reciprocal (division) tables, tables of squares, square roots and
cube roots, geometrical exercises and division problems from around 2600 BC onwards. Later
Babylonian tablets dating from about 1800 to 1600 BC cover topics as varied as fractions,
algebra, methods for solving linear, quadratic and even some cubic equations, and the calculation
of regular reciprocal pairs (pairs of number which multiply together to give 60). One Babylonian
tablet gives an approximation to 2 accurate to an astonishing five decimal places. Others list the
squares of numbers up to 59, the cubes of numbers up to 32 as well as tables of compound

interest. Yet another gives an estimate for of 3 18 (3.125, a reasonable approximation of the
real value of 3.1416).
The idea of square numbers and
quadratic equations (where the
unknown quantity is multiplied
by itself, e.g. x2) naturally arose
in the context of the meaurement
of
land,
and
Babylonian
mathematical tablets give us the
first ever evidence of the solution
of quadratic equations. The
Babylonian approach to solving
them usually revolved around a
kind of geometric game of
slicing up and rearranging
shapes, although the use of
Babylonian Clay tablets from c. 2100 BC showing a problem
algebra and quadratic equations
concerning
the
area
of
an
irregular
shape
also appears. At least some of the
examples we have appear to
indicate problem-solving for its own sake rather than in order to resolve a concrete practical
problem.
The Babylonians used geometric shapes in their buildings and design and in dice for the leisure
games which were so popular in their society, such as the ancient game of backgammon. Their
geometry extended to the calculation of the areas of rectangles, triangles and trapezoids, as well
as the volumes of simple shapes such as bricks and cylinders (although not pyramids).
The famous and controversial Plimpton 322 clay tablet, believed to date from around 1800 BC,
suggests that the Babylonians may well have known the secret of right-angled triangles (that the
square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the square of the other two sides) many centuries
before the Greek Pythagoras. The tablet appears to list 15 perfect Pythagorean triangles with
whole number sides, although some claim that they were merely academic exercises, and not
deliberate manifestations of Pythagorean triples.

EGYPTIAN MATHEMATICS
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 Pharaohs surveyors
used measurements based on
body parts (a palm was the width
of the hand, a cubit the
measurement from elbow to
Ancient
Egyptian
hieroglyphic
numerals
fingertips) to measure land and
buildings very early in Egyptian
history, and a decimal numeric system was developed based on our ten fingers. The oldest
mathematical text from ancient Egypt discovered so far, though, is the Moscow Papyrus, which
dates from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom around 2000 - 1800 BC.
It is thought that the Egyptians introduced the earliest fully-developed base 10 numeration
system at least as early as 2700 BC (and probably much early). Written numbers used a stroke
for units, a heel-bone symbol for tens, a coil of rope for hundreds and a lotus plant for thousands,
as well as other hieroglyphic symbols for higher powers of ten up to a million. However, there
was no concept of place value, so larger numbers were rather unwieldy (although a million
required just one character, a million minus one required fifty-four characters).

The Rhind Papyrus, dating from

around 1650 BC, is a kind of
instruction manual in arithmetic
and geometry, and it gives us
explicit demonstrations of how
multiplication and division was
carried out at that time. It also
contains evidence of other
mathematical
knowledge,
including
unit
fractions,
composite and prime numbers,
arithmetic,
geometric
and
harmonic means, and how to
solve first order linear equations
as well as arithmetic and
geometric series. The Berlin
Papyrus, which dates from
around 1300 BC, shows that
ancient Egyptians could solve
second-order
algebraic
(quadratic) equations.
Multiplication, for example, was
achieved by a process of repeated
doubling of the number to be Ancient
Egyptian
method
of
multiplication
multiplied on one side and of one
on the other, essentially a kind of
multiplication of binary factors similar to that used by modern computers (see the example at
right). These corresponding blocks of counters could then be used as a kind of multiplication
reference table: first, the combination of powers of two which add up to the number to be
multiplied by was isolated, and then the corresponding blocks of counters on the other side
yielded the answer. This effectively made use of the concept of binary numbers, over 3,000 years
before Leibniz introduced it into the west, and many more years before the development of the
computer was to fully explore its potential.
Practical problems of trade and the market led to the development of a notation for fractions. The
papyri which have come down to us demonstrate the use of unit fractions based on the symbol of
the Eye of Horus, where each part of the eye represented a different fraction, each half of the
previous one (i.e. half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, sixty-fourth), so that the total was
one-sixty-fourth short of a whole, the first known example of a geometric series.

Unit fractions could also be used

for simple division sums. For
example, if they needed to divide
3 loaves among 5 people, they
would first divide two of the
loaves into thirds and the third
loaf into fifths, then they would
divide the left over third from the
second loaf into five pieces.
Thus, each person would receive
one-third plus one-fifth plus onefifteenth (which totals threefifths, as we would expect).
The Egyptians approximated the
area of a circle by using shapes
whose area they did know. They
observed that the area of a circle
of diameter 9 units, for example,
was very close to the area of a
square with sides of 8 units, so
that the area of circles of other
diameters could be obtained by
multiplying
the
diameter
by 89 and then squaring it. This
gives an effective approximation
of accurate to within less than
one percent.
Ancient
Egyptian
method
of
division
The pyramids themselves are
another indication of the
sophistication of Egyptian mathematics. Setting aside claims that the pyramids are first known
structures to observe the golden ratio of 1 : 1.618 (which may have occurred for purely aesthetic,
and not mathematical, reasons), there is certainly evidence that they knew the formula for the
volume of a pyramid -13 times the height times the length times the width - as well as of a
truncated or clipped pyramid. They were also aware, long before Pythagoras, of the rule that a
triangle with sides 3, 4 and 5 units yields a perfect right angle, and Egyptian builders used ropes
knotted at intervals of 3, 4 and 5 units in order to ensure exact right angles for their stonework (in
fact, the 3-4-5 right triangle is often called "Egyptian").

MAYAN MATHEMATICS
The Mayan civilisation had
settled in the region of Central
America from about 2000 BC,
although the so-called Classic
Period stretches from about 250
AD to 900 AD. At its peak, it
was one of the most densely
populated and culturally dynamic
societies in the world.
The importance of astronomy
and calendar calculations in
Mayan
society
required
mathematics, and the Maya
constructed quite early a very
sophisticated number system, Mayan
possibly more advanced than any
other in the world at the time
(although the dating of developments is quite difficult).

numerals

The Mayan and other Mesoamerican cultures used a vigesimal number system based on base 20
(and, to some extent, base 5), probably originally developed from counting on fingers and toes.
The numerals consisted of only three symbols: zero, represented as a shell shape; one, a dot; and
five, a bar. Thus, addition and subtraction was a relatively simple matter of adding up dots and
bars. After the number 19, larger numbers were written in a kind of vertical place value format
using powers of 20: 1, 20, 400, 8000, 160000, etc (see image above), although in their calendar
calculations they gave the third position a value of 360 instead of 400 (higher positions revert to
multiples of 20).
The pre-classic Maya and their neighbours had independently developed the concept of zero by
at least as early as 36 BC, and we have evidence of their working with sums up to the hundreds
of millions, and with dates so large it took several lines just to represent them. Despite not
possessing the concept of a fraction, they produced extremely accurate astronomical observations
using no instruments other than sticks, and were able to measure the length of the solar year to a
far higher degree of accuracy than that used in Europe (their calculations produced 365.242 days,
compared to the modern value of 365.242198), as well as the length of the lunar month (their
estimate was 29.5308 days, compared to the modern value of 29.53059).
However, due to the geographical disconnect, Mayan and Mesoamerican mathematics had
absolutely no influence on Old World (European and Asian) numbering systems and
mathematics.

CHINESE MATHEMATICS
Even
as
mathematical
developments
in
the
ancient Greek world
were
beginning to falter during the
final
centuries
BC,
the
burgeoning trade empire of
China was leading Chinese
mathematics to ever greater
heights.
The simple but efficient ancient
Chinese numbering system,
Chinese
number
system
which dates back to at least the Ancient
2nd millennium BC, used small
bamboo rods arranged to represent the numbers 1 to 9, which were then places in columns
representing units, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. It was therefore a decimal place value system,
very similar to the one we use today - indeed it was the first such number system, adopted by the
Chinese over a thousand years before it was adopted in the West - and it made even quite
complex calculations very quick and easy.
Written numbers, however, employed the slightly less efficient system of using a different
symbol for tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. This was largely because there was no concept or
symbol of zero, and it had the effect of limiting the usefulness of the written number in Chinese.
The use of the abacus is often thought of as a Chinese idea, although some type of abacus was in
use inMesopotamia, Egypt and Greece, probably much earlier than in China (the first Chinese
abacus, or suanpan, we know
of dates to about the 2nd Century
BC).
There
was
a
pervasive
fascination with numbers and
mathematical patterns in ancient
China, and different numbers
were believed to have cosmic
significance. In particular, magic
squares - squares of numbers
where each row, column and
diagonal added up to the same
total - were regarded as having
great spiritual and religious
Lo Shu magic square, with its traditional graphical
significance.
representation

The Lo Shu Square, an order three square where each row, column and diagonal adds up to 15, is
perhaps the earliest of these, dating back to around 650 BC (the legend of Emperor Yus
discovery of the the square on the back of a turtle is set as taking place in about 2800 BC). But
soon, bigger magic squares were being constructed, with even greater magical and mathematical
powers, culminating in the elaborate magic squares, circles and triangles of Yang Hui in the 13th
Century (Yang Hui also produced a trianglular representation of binomial coefficients identical
to the later Pascals Triangle, and was perhaps the first to use decimal fractions in the modern
form).
But the main thrust of Chinese
mathematics
developed
in
response to the empires growing
need
for
mathematically
competent administrators. A
textbook
called
Jiuzhang
Suanshu or Nine Chapters on
the Mathematical Art (written
over a period of time from about
200 BC onwards, probably by a
variety of authors) became an
important tool in the education of
such a civil service, covering
hundreds of problems in practical
areas such as trade, taxation,
engineering and the payment of
wages.
It was particularly important as a
guide to how to solve equations the deduction of an unknown
number from other known
information
using
a
sophisticated
matrix-based
method which did not appear in
the West untilCarl Friedrich
Gauss re-discovered it at the
beginning of the 19th Century
(and which is now known as
Early
Gaussian elimination).

Chinese

method

of

solving

equations

Among the greatest mathematicians of ancient China was Liu Hui, who produced a detailed
commentary on the Nine Chapters in 263 AD, was one of the first mathematicians known to
leave roots unevaluated, giving more exact results instead of approximations. By an
approximation using a regular polygon with 192 sides, he also formulated an algorithm which

calculated the value of as 3.14159 (correct to five decimal places), as well as developing a very
early forms of both integral and
differential calculus.
The Chinese went on to solve far
more complex equations using
far larger numbers than those
outlined in the Nine Chapters,
though. They also started to
pursue
more
abstract
mathematical problems (although
usually couched in rather
artificial
practical
terms),
including what has become
known as the Chinese Remainder
Theorem.
This
uses
the
remainders after dividing an
unknown number by a succession
of smaller numbers, such as 3, 5
and 7, in order to calculate the
smallest value of the unknown
number. A technique for solving
such problems, initially posed by
Sun Tzu in the 3rd Century AD
and considered one of the jewels
of mathematics, was being used
to measure planetary movements
by Chinese astronomers in the
6th Century AD, and even today
it has practical uses, such as in The
Internet cryptography.

Chinese

Remainder

Theorem

By the 13th Century, the Golden Age of Chinese mathematics, there were over 30 prestigious
mathematics schools scattered across China. Perhaps the most brilliant Chinese mathematician of
this time was Qin Jiushao, a rather violent and corrupt imperial administrator and warrior, who
explored solutions to quadratic and even cubic equations using a method of repeated
approximations very similar to that later devised in the West by Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th
Century. Qin even extended his technique to solve (albeit approximately) equations involving
numbers up to the power of ten, extraordinarily complex mathematics for its time.

MEDIEVAL MATHEMATICS - FIBONACCI

The 13th Century Italian Leonardo of Pisa, better known by his
nickname Fibonacci, was perhaps the most talented Western
mathematician of the Middle Ages. Little is known of his life
except that he was the son of a customs offical and, as a child,
he travelled around North Africa with his father, where he
learned about Arabic mathematics. On his return to Italy, he
helped to disseminate this knowledge throughout Europe, thus
setting in motion a rejuvenation in European mathematics,
which had lain largely dormant for centuries during the Dark
Ages.
In particular, in 1202, he wrote a hugely influential book called
Liber Abaci ("Book of Calculation"), in which he promoted
the use of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, describing its
many benefits for merchants and mathematicians alike over the
Leonardo of Pisa (Fibonacci)
clumsy system of Roman numerals then in use in Europe.
(c.1170-1250)
Despite its obvious advantages, uptake of the system in Europe
was slow (this was after all during the time of the Crusades
against Islam, a time in which anything Arabic was viewed with great suspicion), and Arabic
numerals were even banned in the city of Florence in 1299 on the pretext that they were easier to
falsify than Romannumerals. However, common sense eventually prevailed and the new system
was adopted throughout Europe by the 15th century, making theRoman system obsolete. The
horizontal bar notation for fractions was also first used in this work (although following
the Arabic practice of placing the fraction to the left of the integer).

Fibonacci is best known, though,

for his introduction into Europe
of a particular number sequence,
which has since become known
as Fibonacci Numbers or the
Fibonacci
Sequence.
He
discovered the sequence - the
first recursive number sequence
known in Europe - while
considering a practical problem
in the Liber Abaci involving
the growth of a hypothetical
population of rabbits based on
idealized assumptions. He noted
that,
after
each
monthly
generation, the number of pairs
of rabbits increased from 1 to 2
to 3 to 5 to 8 to 13, etc, and
identified how the sequence
progressed by adding the
previous
two
terms
(in
mathematical terms, Fn = Fn-1 +
Fn-2), a sequence which could in
theory extend indefinitely.

The

discovery

of

the

famous

Fibonacci

sequence

The sequence, which had

actually been known to Indian mathematicians since the 6th Century, has many interesting
mathematical properties, and many of the implications and relationships of the sequence were
not discovered until several centuries after Fibonacci's death. For instance, the sequence
regenerates itself in some surprising ways: every third F-number is divisible by 2 (F3 = 2), every
fourth F-number is divisible by 3 (F4 = 3), every fifth F-number is divisible by 5 (F5 = 5), every
sixth F-number is divisible by 8 (F6 = 8), every seventh F-number is divisible by 13 (F7 = 13),
etc. The numbers of the sequence has also been found to be ubiquitous in nature: among other
things, many species of flowering plants have numbers of petals in the Fibonacci Sequence; the
spiral arrangements of pineapples occur in 5s and 8s, those of pinecones in 8s and 13s, and the
seeds of sunflower heads in 21s, 34s, 55s or even higher terms in the sequence; etc.

In the 1750s, Robert Simson

noted that the ratio of each term
in the Fibonacci Sequence to the
previous term approaches, with
ever greater accuracy the higher
the
terms,
a
ratio
of
approximately 1 : 1.6180339887
(it is actually an irrational
number equal to(1 + 5)2 which has
since
been
calculated
to
thousands of decimal places).
This value is referred to as the
Golden Ratio, also known as the
Golden Mean, Golden Section,
Divine Proportion, etc, and is
usually denoted by the Greek
letter phi (or sometimes the
capital letter Phi ). Essentially,
two quantities are in the Golden
Ratio if the ratio of the sum of
the quantities to the larger The Golden Ratio can be derived from the Fibonacci
quantity is equal to the ratio of Sequence
the larger quantity to the smaller
one. The Golden Ratio itself has many unique properties, such as 1 = - 1 (0.618...) and 2 =
+ 1 (2.618...), and there are countless examples of it to be found both in nature and in the human
world.
A rectangle with sides in the ratio of 1 : is known as a Golden Rectangle, and many artists and
architects throughout history (dating back to ancient Egypt and Greece, but particularly popular
in the Renaissance art of Leonardo da Vinci and his contemporaries) have proportioned their
works approximately using the Golden Ratio and Golden Rectangles, which are widely
considered to be innately aesthetically pleasing. An arc connecting opposite points of ever
smaller nested Golden Rectangles forms a logarithmic spiral, known as a Golden Spiral. The
Golden Ratio and Golden Spiral can also be found in a surprising number of instances in Nature,
from shells to flowers to animal horns to human bodies to storm systems to complete galaxies.
It should be remembered, though, that the Fibonacci Sequence was actually only a very minor
element in Liber Abaci - indeed, the sequence only received Fibonacci's name in 1877 when
Eduouard Lucas decided to pay tribute to him by naming the series after him - and that Fibonacci
himself was not responsible for identifying any of the interesting mathematical properties of the
sequence, its relationship to the Golden Mean and Golden Rectangles and Spirals, etc.

However, the book's influence on

medieval
mathematics
is
undeniable, and it does also
include discussions of a number
of other mathematical problems
such as the Chinese Remainder
Theorem, perfect numbers and
prime numbers, formulas for
arithmetic series and for square
pyramidal numbers, Euclidean
geometric proofs, and a study of
simultaneous linear equations
along the lines of Diophantus and
Al-Karaji. He also described the
lattice (or sieve) multiplication
method of multiplying large
numbers, a method - originally
pioneered
by
Islamic
mathematicians
like AlKhwarizmi algorithmically
equivalent to long multiplication.
Neither was Liber Abaci
Fibonaccis only book, although
it was his most important one. Fibonacci introduced lattice multiplication to Europe
His Liber Quadratorum (The
Book of Squares), for example, is a book on algebra, published in 1225 in which appears a
statement of what is now called Fibonacci's identity - sometimes also known asBrahmaguptas
identity after the much earlier Indian mathematician who also came to the same conclusions that the product of two sums of two squares is itself a sum of two squares e.g. (12 + 42)(22 + 72) =
262 + 152 = 302 + 12.

16TH
CENTURY
MATHEMATICS
The cultural, intellectual and
artistic movement
of the
Renaissance, which saw a
resurgence of learning based on
classical sources, began in Italy
around the 14th Century, and
gradually spread across most of
Europe over the next two
centuries. Science and art were
still very much interconnected
and intermingled at this time, as
exemplified by the work of
artist/scientists such as Leonardo
da Vinci, and it is no surprise
that, just as in art, revolutionary
work in the fields of philosophy
and science was soon taking
place.
It is a tribute to the respect in
which mathematics was held in
Renaissance Europe that the
famed German artist Albrecht
Drer included an order-4 magic
square
in
his
engraving
"Melencolia I". In fact, it is a socalled "supermagic square" with
many more lines of addition
symmetry than a regular 4 x 4
magic square (see image at
right). The year of the work,
1514, is shown in the two bottom The supermagic square shown in Albrecht Drer's engraving
central squares.
"Melencolia
I"
An important figure in the
late15th and early 16th Centuries is an Italian Franciscan friar called Luca Pacioli, who
published a book on arithmetic, geometry and book-keeping at the end of the 15th Century which
became quite popular for the mathematical puzzles it contained. It also introduced symbols for
plus and minus for the first time in a printed book (although this is also sometimes attributed to
Giel Vander Hoecke, Johannes Widmann and others), symbols that were to become standard
notation. Pacioli also investigated the Golden Ratio of 1 : 1.618... (see the section on Fibonacci)
in his 1509 book "The Divine Proportion", concluding that the number was a message from God
and a source of secret knowledge about the inner beauty of things.

During the 16th and early 17th

Century,
the
equals,
multiplication, division, radical
(root), decimal and inequality
symbols
were
gradually
introduced and standardized. The
use of decimal fractions and
decimal arithmetic is usually
attributed to the Flemish
mathematician Simon Stevin the
late 16th Century, although the
decimal point notation was not
popularized until early in
the 17th Century. Stevin was
ahead of his time in enjoining
that all types of numbers,
whether fractions, negatives, real
numbers or surds (such as 2)
should be treated equally as
numbers in their own right.
In the Renaissance Italy of the
early 16th Century, Bologna
University in particular was
famed for its intense public
mathematics competitions. It was
in just such a competion that the
unlikely figure of the young, self- Basic mathematical notation, with dates of first use
taughtNiccol
Fontana
Tartaglia revealed to the world
the formula for solving first one type, and later all types, of cubic equations (equations with
terms including x3), an achievement hitherto considered impossible and which had stumped the
best mathematicians ofChina, India and the Islamic world.
Building on Tartaglias work, another young Italian, Lodovico Ferrari, soon devised a similar
method to solve quartic equations (equations with terms including x4) and both solutions were
published by Gerolamo Cardano. Despite a decade-long fight over the publication, Tartaglia,
Cardano and Ferrari between them demonstrated the first uses of what are now known as
complex numbers, combinations of real and imaginary numbers (although it fell to another
Bologna resident, Rafael Bombelli, to explain what imaginary numbers really were and how they
could be used). Tartaglia went on to produce other important (although largely ignored) formulas
and methods, and Cardano published perhaps the first systematic treatment of probability.
With Hindu-Arabic numerals, standardized notation and the new language of algebra at their
disposal, the stage was set for the European mathematical revolution of the 17th Century.

17TH
CENTURY
MATHEMATICS
In the wake of the Renaissance,
the 17th Century saw an
unprecedented explosion of
mathematical and scientific ideas
across
Europe,
a
period
sometimes called the Age of
Reason. Hard on the heels of the
Copernican Revolution of
Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th
Century, scientists like Galileo
Galilei, Tycho Brahe and
Johannes Kepler were making
equally revolutionary discoveries
in the exploration of the Solar
system, leading to Keplers
formulation of mathematical
laws of planetary motion.
The invention of the logarithm in
the early 17th Century by John
Napier (and later improved by
Napier and Henry Briggs)
contributed to the advance of Logarithms were invented by John Napier, early in the 17th
science,
astronomy
and Century
mathematics by making some
difficult calculations relatively
easy. It was one of the most significant mathematical developments of the age, and 17th Century
physicists like Kepler and Newton could never have performed the complex calculatons needed
for their innovations without it. The French astronomer and mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace
remarked, almost two centuries later, that Napier, by halving the labours of astronomers, had
doubled their lifetimes.
The logarithm of a number is the exponent when that number is expressed as a power of 10 (or
any other base). It is effectively the inverse of exponentiation. For example, the base 10
logarithm of 100 (usually written log10 100 or lg 100 or just log 100) is 2, because 102 = 100.
The value of logarithms arises from the fact that multiplication of two or more numbers is
equivalent to adding their logarithms, a much simpler operation. In the same way, division
involves the subtraction of logarithms, squaring is as simple as multiplying the logarithm by two
(or by three for cubing, etc), square roots requires dividing the logarithm by 2 (or by 3 for cube
roots, etc).
Although base 10 is the most popular base, another common base for logarithms is the
number e which has a value of 2.7182818... and which has special properties which make it very

useful for logarithmic calculations. These are known as natural logarithms, and are written
loge or ln. Briggs produced extensive lookup tables of common (base 10) logarithms, and by
1622 William Oughted had produced a logarithmic slide rule, an instrument which became
indispensible in technological innovation for the next 300 years.
Napier also improved Simon Stevin's decimal notation and popularized the use of the decimal
point, and made lattice multiplication (originally developed by the Persian mathematician AlKhwarizmi and introduced into Europe by Fibonacci) more convenient with the introduction of
Napier's
Bones,
a
multiplication tool using a set of
numbered rods.
Although not principally a
mathematician, the role of the
Frenchman Marin Mersenne as a
sort of clearing house and gobetween
for
mathematical
thought in France during this
period was crucial. Mersenne is
largely
remembered
in
mathematics today in the term
Mersenne primes - prime
numbers that are one less than a
power of 2, e.g. 3 (22-1), 7 (23-1),
31 (25-1), 127 (27-1), 8191 (2131), etc. In modern times, the
largest known prime number has
almost always been a Mersenne
prime, but in actual fact,
Mersennes real connection with
the numbers was only to compile Graph of the number of digits in the known Mersenne primes
a none-too-accurate list of the
smaller ones (when Edouard
Lucas devised a method of checking them in the 19th Century, he pointed out that Mersenne had
incorrectly included 267-1 and left out 261-1, 289-1 and 2107-1 from his list).
The Frenchman Ren Descartes is sometimes considered the first of the modern school of
mathematics. His development of analytic geometry and Cartesian coordinates in the mid-17th
Century soon allowed the orbits of the planets to be plotted on a graph, as well as laying the
foundations for the later development of calculus (and much later multi-dimensional geometry).
Descartes is also credited with the first use of superscripts for powers or exponents.
Two other great French mathematicians were close contemporaries of Descartes: Pierre de
Fermat andBlaise Pascal. Fermat formulated several theorems which greatly extended our
knowlege of number theory, as well as contributing some early work on infinitesimal

calculus. Pascal is most famous for Pascals Triangle of binomial coefficients, although similar
figures had actually been produced by Chinese and Persian mathematicians long before him.
It was an ongoing exchange of letters between Fermat and Pascal that led to the development of
the concept of expected values and the field of probability theory. The first published work on
probability theory, however, and the first to outline the concept of mathematical expectation, was
by the Dutchman Christiaan Huygens in 1657, although it was largely based on the ideas in the
letters of the two Frenchmen.
The French mathematician and
engineer Girard Desargues is
considered one of the founders of
the field of projective geometry,
later developed further by Jean
Victor Poncelet and Gaspard
Monge. Projective geometry
considers what happens to shapes
when they are projected on to a
non-parallel plane. For example,
a circle may be projected into an
ellipse or a hyperbola, and so
these curves may all be regarded
as equivalent in projective
geometry.
In
particular,
Desargues developed the pivotal
concept of the point at infinity
where parallels actually meet.
His perspective theorem states
that, when two triangles are in
perspective, their corresponding
sides meet at points on the same Desargues
collinear line.

perspective

theorem

By standing on the shoulders of giants, the Englishman Sir Isaac Newton was able to pin down
the laws of physics in an unprecedented way, and he effectively laid the groundwork for all of
classical mechanics, almost single-handedly. But his contribution to mathematics should never
be underestimated, and nowadays he is often considered, along with Archimedes and Gauss, as
one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
Newton and, independently, the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz,
completely revolutionized mathematics (not to mention physics, engineering, economics and
science in general) by the development of infinitesimal calculus, with its two main operations,
differentiation and integration. Newtonprobably developed his work before Leibniz,
but Leibniz published his first, leading to an extended and rancorous dispute. Whatever the truth
behind the various claims, though, it is Leibnizs calculus notation that is the one still in use

today, and calculus of some sort is used extensively in everything from engineering to economics
to medicine to astronomy.
Both Newton and Leibniz also contributed greatly in other areas of mathematics,
including Newtons contributions to a generalized binomial theorem, the theory of finite
differences and the use of infinite power series, and Leibnizs development of a mechanical
forerunner to the computer and the use of matrices to solve linear equations.
However, credit should also be given to some earlier 17th Century mathematicians whose work
partially anticipated, and to some extent paved the way for, the development of infinitesimal
calculus. As early as the 1630s, the Italian mathematician Bonaventura Cavalieri developed a
geometrical approach to calculus known as Cavalieri's principle, or the method of indivisibles.
The Englishman John Wallis, who systematized and extended the methods of analysis
of Descartes and Cavalieri, also made significant contributions towards the development of
calculus, as well as originating the idea of the number line, introducing the symbol for infinity
and the term continued fraction, and extending the standard notation for powers to include
negative integers and rational numbers. Newton's teacher Isaac Barrow is usually credited with
the discovery (or at least the first rigorous statrement of) the fundamental theorem of calculus,
which essentially showed that integration and differentiation are inverse operations, and he also
made complete translations of Euclid into Latin and English.
18TH
CENTURY
MATHEMATICS

Calculus

of

variations

Most of the late 17th Century and

a good part of the early 18th
were taken up by the work of disciples of Newtonand Leibniz, who applied their ideas on
calculus to solving a variety of problems in physics, astronomy and engineering.
The period was dominated, though, by one family, the Bernoullis of Basel in Switzerland, which
boasted two or three generations of exceptional mathematicians, particularly the brothers, Jacob
and Johann. They were largely responsible for further developing Leibnizs infinitesimal
calculus - paricularly through the generalization and extension of calculus known as the
"calculus of variations" - as well as Pascal andFermats probability and number theory.
Basel was also the home town of the greatest of the 18th Century mathematicians, Leonhard
Euler, although, partly due to the difficulties in getting on in a city dominated by
theBernoulli family, Euler spent most of his time abroad, in Germany and St. Petersburg, Russia.
He excelled in all aspects of mathematics, from geometry to calculus to trigonometry to algebra
to number theory, and was able to find unexpected links between the different fields. He proved
numerous theorems, pioneered new methods, standardized mathematical notation and wrote
many influential textbooks throughout his long academic life.
In a letter to Euler in 1742, the German mathematician Christian Goldbach proposed the
Goldbach Conjecture, which states that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the
sum of two primes (e.g. 4 = 2 + 2; 8 = 3 + 5; 14 = 3 + 11 = 7 + 7; etc) or, in another equivalent
version, every integer greater than 5 can be expressed as the sum of three primes. Yet another
version is the so-called weak Goldbach Conjecture, that all odd numbers greater than 7 are the
sum of three odd primes. They remain among the oldest unsolved problems in number theory
(and in all of mathematics), although the weak form of the conjecture appears to be closer to
resolution than the strong one. Goldbach also proved other theorems in number theory such as
the Goldbach-Euler Theorem on perfect powers.
Despite Eulers and the Bernoullis dominance of 18th Century mathematics, many of the other
important mathematicians were from France. In the early part of the century, Abraham de
Moivre is perhaps best known for de Moivre's formula, (cosx + isinx)n = cos(nx) + isin(nx),
which links complex numbers and trigonometry. But he also generalized Newtons famous
binomial theorem into the multinomial theorem, pioneered the development of analytic
geometry, and his work on the normal distribution (he gave the first statement of the formula for
the normal distribution curve) and probability theory were of great importance.
France became even more prominent towards the end of the century, and a handful of late 18th
Century French mathematicians in particular deserve mention at this point, beginning with the
three Ls.
Joseph Louis Lagrange collaborated with Euler in an important joint work on the calculus of
variation, but he also contributed to differential equations and number theory, and he is usually
credited with originating the theory of groups, which would become so important
in 19th and 20th Century mathematics. His name is given an early theorem in group theory,

which states that the number of elements of every sub-group of a finite group divides evenly into
the number of elements of the
original finite group.
Lagrange is also credited with
the four-square theorem, that any
natural
number
can
be
represented as the sum of four
squares (e.g. 3 = 12 + 12 + 12 +
02; 31 = 52 + 22 + 12 + 12; 310 =
172 + 42 + 22 + 12; etc), as well as
another theorem, confusingly
also known as Lagranges
Theorem or Lagranges Mean
Value Theorem, which states
that, given a section of a smooth
continuous (differentiable) curve,
there is at least one point on that
section at which the derivative
(or slope) of the curve is equal
(or parallel) to the average (or
Mean
value
Theorem
mean) derivative of the section. Lagranges
Lagranges 1788 treatise on
analytical mechanics offered the most comprehensive treatment of classical mechanics
since Newton, and formed a basis for the development of mathematical physics in the 19th
Century.
Pierre-Simon Laplace, sometimes referred to as the French Newton, was an important
mathematician and astronomer, whose monumental work Celestial Mechanics translated the
geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a much broader
range of problems. Although his early work was mainly on differential equations and finite
differences, he was already starting to think about the mathematical and philosophical concepts
of probability and statistics in the 1770s, and he developed his own version of the so-called
Bayesian interpretation of probability independently of Thomas Bayes. Laplace is well known
for his belief in complete scientific determinism, and he maintained that there should be a set of
scientific laws that would allow us - at least in principle - to predict everything about the
universe and how it works.

Adrien-Marie Legendre also

made important contributions to
statistics, number theory, abstract
algebra
and
mathematical
analysis in the late 18th and early
19th Centuries, athough much of
his work (such as the least
squares method for curve-fitting
and linear regression, the
quadratic reciprocity law, the
prime number theorem and his
work on elliptic functions) was
only brought to perfection - or at
least to general notice - by
others, particularlyGauss. His
Elements of Geometry, a reworking
of Euclids
book,
became the leading geometry
textbook for almost 100 years, The first six Legendre polynomials (solutions to Legendres
and his extremely accurate differential
equation)
measurement of the terrestrial
meridian inspired the creation,
and almost universal adoption, of the metric system of measures and weights.
Yet another Frenchman, Gaspard Monge was the inventor of descriptive geometry, a clever
method of representing three-dimensional objects by projections on the two-dimensional plane
using a specific set of procedures, a technique which would later become important in the fields
of engineering, architecture and design. His orthographic projection became the graphical
method used in almost all modern mechanical drawing.
After many centuries of increasingly accurate approximations, Johann Lambert, a Swiss
mathematician and prominent astronomer, finally provided a rigorous proof in 1761 that is
irrational, i.e. it can not be expressed as a simple fraction using integers only or as a terminating
or repeating decimal. This definitively proved that it would never be possible to calculate it
exactly, although the obsession with obtaining more and more accurate approximations continues
to this day. (Over a hundred years later, in 1882, Ferdinand von Lindemann would prove that is
also transcendental, i.e. it cannot be the root of any polynomial equation with rational
coefficients). Lambert was also the first to introduce hyperbolic functions into trigonometry and
made some prescient conjectures regarding non-Euclidean space and the properties of hyperbolic
triangles.

19TH
CENTURY
MATHEMATICS
The 19th Century saw an
unprecedented increase in the
breadth and complexity of
mathematical concepts. Both
France and Germany were caught
up in the age of revolution which
swept Europe in the late 18th
Century, but the two countries
treated
mathematics
quite
differently.
After the French Revolution,
Napoleon
emphasized
the
practical
usefulness
of
mathematics and his reforms and
military ambitions gave French
mathematics a big boost, as
exemplified by the three Ls,
Lagrange, Laplace and Legendre
(see the section on 18th Century
Mathematics),
Fourier
and
Galois.
Approximation of a periodic function by the Fourier Series
Joseph Fourier's study, at the
beginning of the 19th Century, of
infinite sums in which the terms are trigonometric functions were another important advance in
mathematical analysis. Periodic functions that can be expressed as the sum of an infinite series of
sines and cosines are known today as Fourier Series, and they are still powerful tools in pure and
applied mathematics. Fourier (following Leibniz,Euler, Lagrange and others) also contributed
towards defining exactly what is meant by a function, although the definition that is found in
texts today - defining it in terms of a correspondence between elements of the domain and the
range - is usually attributed to the 19th Century German mathematician Peter Dirichlet.
In 1806, Jean-Robert Argand published his paper on how complex numbers (of the form a + bi,
where i is -1) could be represented on geometric diagrams and manipulated using trigonometry
and vectors. Even though the Dane Caspar Wessel had produced a very similar paper at the end
of the 18th Century, and even though it was Gauss who popularized the practice, they are still
known today as Argand Diagrams.
The Frenchman variste Galois proved in the late 1820s that there is no general algebraic
method for solving polynomial equations of any degree greater than four, going further than the
Norwegian Niels Henrik Abel who had, just a few years earlier, shown the impossibility of
solving quintic equations, and breaching an impasse which had existed for centuries. Galois'

work also laid the groundwork for further developments such as the beginnings of the field of
abstract algebra, including areas like algebraic geometry, group theory, rings, fields, modules,
vector spaces and non-commutative algebra.
Germany, on the other hand, under the influence of the great educationalist Wilhelm von
Humboldt, took a rather different approach, supporting pure mathematics for its own sake,
detached from the demands of the state and military. It was in this environment that the young
German prodigy Carl Friedrich Gauss, sometimes called the Prince of Mathematics, received
his education at the prestigious University of Gttingen. Some ofGauss ideas were a hundred
years ahead of their time, and touched on many different parts of the mathematical world,
including geometry, number theory, calculus, algebra and probability. He is widely regarded as
one of the three greatest
mathematicians of all times,
along
with Archimedes and Newton.
Later in life, Gauss also claimed
to have investigated a kind of
non-Euclidean geometry using
curved space but, unwilling to
court controversy, he decided not
to pursue or publish any of these
hyperbolic
and
elliptic
geometry
avant-garde ideas. This left the Euclidean,
field
open
for Jnos
Bolyai and Nikolai
Lobachevsky(respectively, a Hungarian and a Russian) who both independently explored the
potential of hyperbolic geometry and curved spaces.
The German Bernhard Riemann worked on a different kind of non-Euclidean geometry called
elliptic geometry, as well as on a generalized theory of all the different types of
geometry. Riemann, however, soon took this even further, breaking away completely from all
the limitations of 2 and 3 dimensional geometry, whether flat or curved, and began to think in
higher dimensions. His exploration of the zeta function in multi-dimensional complex numbers
revealed an unexpected link with the distribution of prime numbers, and his famous Riemann
Hypothesis, still unproven after 150 years, remains one of the worlds great unsolved
mathematical mysteries and the testing ground for new generations of mathematicians.
British mathematics also saw something of a resurgence in the early and mid-19th century.
Although the roots of the computer go back to the geared calculators of Pascal and Leibniz in the
17th Century, it was Charles Babbage in 19th Century England who designed a machine that
could automatically perform computations based on a program of instructions stored on cards or
tape. His large "difference engine" of 1823 was able to calculate logarithms and trigonometric
functions, and was the true forerunner of the modern electronic computer. Although never
actually built in his lifetime, a machine was built almost 200 years later to his specifications and
worked perfectly. He also designed a much more sophisticated machine he called the "analytic

engine", complete with punched cards, printer and computational abilities commensurate with
modern computers.
Another 19th Century Englishman, George Peacock, is usually credited with the invention of
symbolic algebra, and the extension of the scope of algebra beyond the ordinary systems of
numbers. This recognition of the possible existence of non-arithmetical algebras was an
important stepping stone toward future developments in abstract algebra.
In the mid-19th Century, the British mathematician George Boole devised an algebra (now called
Boolean algebra or Boolean logic), in which the only operators were AND, OR and NOT, and
which could be applied to the solution of logical problems and mathematical functions. He also
described a kind of binary system which used just two objects, "on" and "off" (or "true" and
"false", 0 and 1, etc), in which, famously, 1 + 1 = 1. Boolean algebra was the starting point of
modern mathematical logic and
ultimately led to the development
of computer science.
The concept of number and
algebra was further extended by
the Irish mathematician William
Hamilton, whose 1843 theory of
quaternions (a 4-dimensional
number system, where a quantity
representing a 3-dimensional
rotation can be described by just
an angle and a vector).
Quaternions, and its later
generalization
by
Hermann
Grassmann, provided the first
example of a non-commutative
algebra
(i.e.
one
in
which a x b does not always
equal bx a), and showed that
several
different
consistent
algebras may be derived by
choosing different sets of Hamiltons
axioms.

quaternion

The Englishman Arthur Cayley extended Hamilton's quaternions and developed the octonions.
But Cayley was one of the most prolific mathematicians in history, and was a pioneer of modern
group theory, matrix algebra, the theory of higher singularities, and higher dimensional geometry
(anticipating the later ideas of Klein), as well as the theory of invariants.
Throughout the 19th Century, mathematics in general became ever more complex and abstract.
But it also saw a re-visiting of some older methods and an emphasis on mathematical rigour. In
the first decades of the century, the Bohemian priest Bernhard Bolzano was one of the earliest

mathematicians to begin instilling rigour into mathematical analysis, as well as giving the first
purely analytic proof of both the fundamental theorem of algebra and the intermediate value
theorem, and early consideration of sets (collections of objects defined by a common property,
such as "all the numbers greater than 7" or "all right triangles", etc). When the German
mathematician Karl Weierstrass discovered the theoretical existence of a continuous function
having no derivative (in other words, a continuous curve possessing no tangent at any of its
points), he saw the need for a rigorous arithmetization of calculus, from which all the basic
concepts of analysis could be derived.
Along with Riemann and, particularly, the Frenchman Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Weierstrass
completely reformulated calculus in an even more rigorous fashion, leading to the development
of mathematical analysis, a branch of pure mathematics largely concerned with the notion of
limits (whether it be the limit of a sequence or the limit of a function) and with the theories of
differentiation, integration, infinite series and analytic functions. In 1845, Cauchy also proved
Cauchy's theorem, a fundamental theorem of group theory, which he discovered while
examining permutation groups. Carl Jacobi also made important contributions to analysis,
determinants and matrices, and especially his theory of periodic functions and elliptic functions
and their relation to the elliptic
theta function.
August Ferdinand Mbius is best
known for his 1858 discovery of
the Mbius strip, a nonorientable
two-dimensional
surface which has only one side
when embedded in threedimensional Euclidean space
(actually a German, Johann
Benedict Listing, devised the
same object just a couple of
months before Mbius, but it has
come to hold Mbius' name).
Many other concepts are also
named after him, including the
Mbius configuration, Mbius
transformations, the Mbius
transform of number theory, the
Mbius function and the Mbius
inversion formula. He also
introduced
homogeneous
coordinates
and
discussed
geometric
and
projective
transformations.
Non-orientable surfaces with no identifiable "inner" and
"outer"
sides
Felix Klein also pursued more
developments in non-Euclidean

geometry, include the Klein bottle, a one-sided closed surface which cannot be embedded in
three-dimensional Euclidean space, only in four or more dimensions. It can be best visualized as
a cylinder looped back through itself to join with its other end from the "inside". Kleins 1872
Erlangen Program, which classified geometries by their underlying symmetry groups (or their
groups of transformations), was a hugely influential synthesis of much of the mathematics of the
day, and his work was very important in the later development of group theory and function
theory.
The Norwegian mathematician Marius Sophus Lie also applied algebra to the study of geometry.
He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry, and applied it to the geometric theory of
differential equations by means of continuous groups of transformations known as Lie groups.
In an unusual occurrence in 1866, an unknown 16-year old Italian, Niccol Paganini, discovered
the second smallest pair of amicable numbers (1,184 and 1210), which had been completely
overlooked by some of the greatest mathematicians in history (including Euler, who had
identified over 60 such numbers in the 18th Century, some of them huge).
In the later 19th Century, Georg Cantor established the first foundations of set theory, which
enabled the rigorous treatment of the notion of infinity, and which has since become the common
language of nearly all mathematics. In the face of fierce resistance from most of his
contemporaries and his own battle against mental illness, Cantor explored new mathematical
worlds where there were many
different infinities, some of
which were larger than others.
Cantors work on set theory was
extended by another German,
Richard Dedekind, who defined
concepts such as similar sets and
infinite sets. Dedekind also came
up with the notion, now called a
Dedekind cut which is now a
standard definition of the real
numbers. He showed that any
irrational number divides the
rational numbers into two classes Venn
diagram
or sets, the upper class being
strictly greater than all the
members of the other lower class. Thus, every location on the number line continuum contains
either a rational or an irrational number, with no empty locations, gaps or discontinuities. In
1881, the Englishman John Venn introduced his Venn diagrams which become useful and
ubiquitous tools in set theory.
Building on Riemanns deep ideas on the distribution of prime numbers, the year 1896 saw two
independent proofs of the asymptotic law of the distribution of prime numbers (known as the
Prime Number Theorem), one by Jacques Hadamard and one by Charles de la Valle Poussin,

which showed that the number of primes occurring up to any number x is asymptotic to (or tends
towards) xlog x.
Hermann Minkowski, a great
friend
ofDavid
Hilbert and
teacher of the young Albert
Einstein, developed a branch of
number theory called the
"geometry of numbers" late in
the 19th Century as a geometrical
method in multi-dimensional
space for solving number theory
problems, involving complex
concepts such as convex sets,
lattice points and vector space.
Later, in 1907, it was Minkowski
who realized that the Einsteins
1905 special theory of relativity
could be best understood in a
four-dimensional space, often
referred to as Minkowski spacetime.
Gottlob
Freges
1879 Minkowski
space-time
Begriffsschrift
(roughly
translated as Concept-Script)
broke new ground in the field of logic, including a rigorous treatment of the ideas of functions
and variables. In his attempt to show that mathematics grows out of logic, he devised techniques
that took him far beyond the logical traditions of Aristotle (and even of George Boole). He was
the first to explicitly introduce the notion of variables in logical statements, as well as the notions
of quantifiers, universals and existentials. He extended Boole's "propositional logic" into a new
"predicate logic" and, in so doing, set the stage for the radical advances of Giuseppe
Peano, Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert in the early 20th Century.Henri Poincar came to
prominence in the latter part of the 19th Century with at least a partial solution to the three body
problem, a deceptively simple problem which had stubbornly resisted resolution since the time
ofNewton, over two hundred years earlier. Although his solution actually proved to be erroneous,
its implications led to the early intimations of what would later become known as chaos theory.
In between his important work in theoretical physics, he also greatly extended the theory of
mathematical topology, leaving behind a knotty problem known as the Poincar conjecture
which remined unsolved until 2002.Poincar was also an engineer and a polymath, and perhaps
the last of the great mathematicians to adhere to an older conception of mathematics, which
championed a faith in human intuition over rigour and formalism. He is sometimes referred to as
the Last Univeralist as he was perhaps the last mathematician able to shine in almost all of the
various aspects of what had become by now a huge, encyclopedic and incredibly complex
subject. The 20th Century would belong to the specialists.