GKM VIDYASHRAM

SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL

MATHEMATICS
PROJECT
ON
HISTORY OF
MATHEMATICS

NAME : ADHYAYAN GUPTA

CLASS : XII
ROLL NUMBER :

AISSCE - 2023 - 2024

 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that, ADHYAYAN GUPTA of

class XII has successfully completed the
project on the topic HISTORY OF
MATHEMATICS under the guidance of Ms.
TASNEEM in partial fulfilment of Maths
practical examination conducted by SSCE,
CBSE, New Delhi for the academic year
2023 - 2024

Signature of Signature of
Teacher in charge Principal
 TABLE OF CONTENT

1. INTRODUCTION 1

2 BABYLONIAN MATHEMATICS 3

3. EGYPTIAN MATHEMATICS 6
3.1. Numbered
3.2. Multiplication And Division
3.3. Algebra
3.4. Quadratic Equation

4. GREEK MATHEMATICS 9
4.1. Attic or Herodianic Numerals
4.2. Thales Intercept Theorem.
4.3. Three geometrical problems..

5. MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN MATHEMATICS 12

5.1. Boethius and his Quadrivium
5.2. Leonardo Fibonacci
5.3. Nicole Oresm

6. CHINESE MATHEMATICS 15
6.1. Qin mathematics
6.2. Han mathematics
6.3. Tang mathematics
7. INDIAN MATHEMATICS 18
7.1. Pingala (300 BCE-200 BCE)
7.2. Jain mathematics (400 BCE-200 CE)
7.3. The Sutra people

8. MODERN MATHEMATICS 21
8.1. 20th Century
8.2. 21st Century

9. REFERENCE 23
 1. INTRODUCTION

The history of mathematics deals with the origin of

discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical
methods and notation of the past. Before the
modern age and the worldwide spread of
knowledge, written examples of new mathematical
developments have come to light only in a few
locales. From 3000 BC the Mesopotamian states of
Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, followed closely by
Ancient Egypt and the Levantine state of Ebla began
using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for purposes
of taxation, commerce, trade and also in the patterns
in nature, the field of astronomy and to record time
and formulate calendars.
The earliest mathematical texts available are from
Mesopotamia and Egypt – Plimpton 322 (Babylonian
c. 2000 – 1900 BC) the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus
(Egyptian c. 1800 BC) and the Moscow
Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian c. 1890 BC). All of
these texts mention the so-called Pythagorean
triples, so, by inference, the Pythagorean theorem
seems to be the most ancient and widespread

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 mathematical development after basic arithmetic
and geometry.

Many Greek and Arabic texts on mathematics were

translated into Latin from the 12th century onward,
leading to further development of mathematics in
Medieval Europe. From ancient times through the
Middle Ages, periods of mathematical discovery
were often followed by centuries of stagnation.[11]
Beginning in Renaissance Italy in the 15th century,
new mathematical developments, interacting with
new scientific discoveries, were made at an
increasing pace that continues through the present
day. This includes the groundbreaking work of both
Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the
development of infinitesimal calculus during the
course of the 17th century.

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 2. Babylonian Mathematics

Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics

of the peoples of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) from
the days of the early Sumerians through the
Hellenistic period almost to the dawn of Christianity.
The majority of Babylonian mathematical work
comes from two widely separated periods: The first
few hundred years of the second millennium BC
(Old Babylonian period), and the last few centuries
of the first millennium BC (Seleucid period). It is
named Babylonian mathematics due to the central
role of Babylon as a place of study. Later under the
Arab Empire, Mesopotamia, especially Baghdad,
once again became an important centre of study for
Islamic mathematics.

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 Geometry problem on a clay tablet belonging to a
school for scribes; Susa, first half of the 2nd
millennium BCE

In contrast to the sparsity of sources in Egyptian

mathematics, knowledge of Babylonian mathematics
is derived from more than 400 clay tablets unearthed
since the 1850s. Written in Cuneiform script, tablets
were inscribed whilst the clay was moist, and baked
hard in an oven or by the heat of the sun. Some of
these appear to be graded homework.
The earliest evidence of written mathematics dates
back to the ancient Sumerians, who built the earliest
civilization in Mesopotamia. They developed a
complex system of metrology from 3000 BC that
was chiefly concerned with administrative/financial
counting, such as grain allotments, workers, weights
of silver, or even liquids, among other things.From
around 2500 BC onward, the Sumerians wrote
multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with
geometrical exercises and division problems. The
earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date
back to this period.

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 Other topics covered by Babylonian mathematics
include fractions, algebra, quadratic and cubic
equations, and the calculation of regular numbers,
and their reciprocal pairs. The tablets also include
multiplication tables and methods for solving linear,
quadratic equations and cubic equations, a
remarkable achievement for the time. Tablets from
the Old Babylonian period also contain the earliest
known statement of the Pythagorean
theorem.However, as with Egyptian mathematics,
Babylonian mathematics shows no awareness of the
difference between exact and approximate solutions,
or the solvability of a problem, and most importantly,
no explicit statement of the need for proofs or logical
principles.

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 3. Egyptian Mathematics

Egyptian mathematics refers to mathematics written

in the Egyptian language. From the Hellenistic
period, Greek replaced Egyptian as the written
language of Egyptian scholars. Mathematical study
in Egypt later continued under the Arab Empire as
part of Islamic mathematics, when Arabic became
the written language of Egyptian scholars.
Archaeological evidence has suggested that the
Ancient Egyptian counting system had origins in
Sub-Saharan Africa. Also, fractal geometry designs
which are widespread among Sub-Saharan African
cultures are also found in Egyptian architecture and
cosmological signs.

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 The most extensive Egyptian mathematical text is
the Rhind papyrus (sometimes also called the
Ahmes Papyrus after its author), dated to c. 1650
BC but likely a copy of an older document from the
Middle Kingdom of about 2000–1800 BC. It is an
instruction manual for students in arithmetic and
geometry. In addition to giving area formulas and
methods for multiplication, division and working with
unit fractions, it also contains evidence of other
mathematical knowledge, including composite and
prime numbers; arithmetic, geometric and harmonic
means; and simplistic understandings of both the
Sieve of Eratosthenes and perfect number theory
(namely, that of the number 6). It also shows how to
solve first order linear equations as well as
arithmetic and geometric series.
Another significant Egyptian mathematical text is the
Moscow papyrus, also from the Middle Kingdom
period, dated to c. 1890 BC. It consists of what are
today called word problems or story problems, which
were apparently intended as entertainment. One
problem is considered to be of particular importance
because it gives a method for finding the volume of
a frustum (truncated pyramid).

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Finally, the Berlin Papyrus 6619 (c. 1800 BC) shows
that ancient Egyptians could solve a second-order
algebraic equation.

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 4. Greek Mathematics

Greek mathematics refers to the mathematics

written in the Greek language from the time of
Thales of Miletus (~600 BC) to the closure of the
Academy of Athens in 529 AD.[39] Greek
mathematicians lived in cities spread over the entire
Eastern Mediterranean, from Italy to North Africa,
but were united by culture and language. Greek
mathematics of the period following Alexander the
Great is sometimes called Hellenistic
mathematics.[40]
Greek mathematics was much more sophisticated
than the mathematics that had been developed by
earlier cultures. All surviving records of pre-Greek
mathematics show the use of inductive reasoning,
that is, repeated observations used to establish rules
of thumb. Greek mathematicians, by contrast, used
deductive reasoning. The Greeks used logic to
derive conclusions from definitions and axioms, and
used mathematical rigor to prove them.[41]
Greek mathematics is thought to have begun with
Thales of Miletus (c. 624–c.546 BC) and Pythagoras
of Samos (c. 582–c. 507 BC). Although the extent of
the influence is disputed, they were probably
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 inspired by Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics.

According to legend, Pythagoras travelled to Egypt

to learn mathematics, geometry, and astronomy from
Egyptian priests.

The Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagoreans are generally credited with the first proof of the
theorem.

Thales used geometry to solve problems such as

calculating the height of pyramids and the distance
of ships from the shore. He is credited with the first
use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by
deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem. As a
result, he has been hailed as the first true
mathematician and the first known individual to
whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed.
Pythagoras established the Pythagorean School,
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 whose doctrine it was that mathematics ruled the
universe and whose motto was "All is number". It
was the Pythagoreans who coined the term
"mathematics", and with whom the study of
mathematics for its own sake begins. The
Pythagoreans are credited with the first proof of the
Pythagorean theorem, though the statement of the
theorem has a long history, and with the proof of the
existence of irrational numbers. Although he was
preceded by the Babylonians, Indians and the
Chinese, the Neopythagorean mathematician
Nicomachus (60–120 AD) provided one of the
earliest Greco-Roman multiplication tables, whereas
the oldest extant Greek multiplication table is found
on a wax tablet dated to the 1st century AD (now
found in the British Museum). The association of the
Neopythagoreans with the Western invention of the
multiplication table is evident in its later Mediaeval
name: the mensa Pythagorica.

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 5. Mediaeval European
Mathematics

Mediaeval European interest in mathematics was

driven by concerns quite different from those of
modern mathematicians. One driving element was
the belief that mathematics provided the key to
understanding the created order of nature,
frequently justified by Plato's Timaeus and the
biblical passage (in the Book of Wisdom) that God
had ordered all things in measure, and number, and
weight.
Boethius provided a place for mathematics in the
curriculum in the 6th century when he coined the
term quadrivium to describe the study of arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, and music. He wrote De
institutione arithmetica, a free translation from the
Greek of Nicomachus's Introduction to Arithmetic;
De institutione musica, also derived from Greek
sources; and a series of excerpts from Euclid's
Elements. His works were theoretical, rather than
practical, and were the basis of mathematical study
until the recovery of Greek and Arabic mathematical
works.

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 In the 12th century, European scholars travelled to
Spain and Sicily seeking scientific Arabic texts,
including al-Khwārizmī's The Compendious Book on
Calculation by Completion and Balancing, translated
into Latin by Robert of Chester, and the complete
text of Euclid's Elements, translated in various
versions by Adelard of Bath, Herman of Carinthia,
and Gerard of Cremona. These and other new
sources sparked a renewal of mathematics.
Leonardo of Pisa, now known as Fibonacci,
serendipitously learned about the Hindu–Arabic
numerals on a trip to what is now Béjaïa, Algeria
with his merchant father. (Europe was still using
Roman numerals.) There, he observed a system of
arithmetic (specifically algorism) which due to the
positional notation of Hindu–Arabic numerals was
much more efficient and greatly facilitated
commerce. Leonardo wrote Liber Abaci in 1202
(updated in 1254) introducing the technique to
Europe and beginning a long period of popularising
it. The book also brought to Europe what is now
known as the Fibonacci sequence (known to Indian
mathematicians for hundreds of years before that)
which Fibonacci used as an unremarkable example.

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 Nicole Oresme (1323–1382), shown in this contemporary illuminated manuscript with an
armillary sphere in the foreground, was the first to offer a mathematical proof for the divergence
of the harmonic series.

Nicole Oresme at the University of Paris and the

Italian Giovanni di Casali independently provided
graphical demonstrations of this relationship,
asserting that the area under the line depicting the
constant acceleration, represented the total distance
traveled.In a later mathematical commentary on
Euclid's Elements, Oresme made a more detailed
general analysis in which he demonstrated that a
body will acquire in each successive increment of
time an increment of any quality that increases as
the odd numbers. Since Euclid had demonstrated
the sum of the odd numbers are the square
numbers, the total quality acquired by the body
increases as the square of the time.

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 6. Chinese Mathematics

An analysis of early Chinese mathematics has

demonstrated its unique development compared to
other parts of the world, leading scholars to assume
an entirely independent development. The oldest
extant mathematical text from China is the Zhoubi
Suanjing (周髀算經), variously dated to between
1200 BC and 100 BC, though a date of about 300
BC during the Warring States Period appears
reasonable. However, the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips,
containing the earliest known decimal multiplication
table (although ancient Babylonians had ones with a
base of 60), is dated around 305 BC and is perhaps
the oldest surviving mathematical text of China.

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 Japanese mathematics, Korean mathematics, and
Vietnamese mathematics are traditionally viewed as
stemming from Chinese mathematics and belonging
to the Confucian-based East Asian cultural sphere.
Korean and Japanese mathematics were heavily
influenced by the algebraic works produced during
China's Song dynasty, whereas Vietnamese
mathematics was heavily indebted to popular works
of China's Ming dynasty (1368–1644). For instance,
although Vietnamese mathematical treatises were
written in either Chinese or the native Vietnamese
Chữ Nôm script, all of them followed the Chinese
format of presenting a collection of problems with
algorithms for solving them, followed by numerical
answers. Mathematics in Vietnam and Korea were
mostly associated with the professional court
bureaucracy of mathematicians and astronomers,
whereas in Japan it was more prevalent in the realm
of private schools.

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 7. Indian Mathematics

The earliest civilization on the Indian subcontinent is

the Indus Valley civilization (mature second phase:
2600 to 1900 BC) that flourished in the Indus river
basin. Their cities were laid out with geometric
regularity, but no known mathematical documents
survive from this civilization.

The oldest extant mathematical records from India

are the Sulba Sutras (dated variously between the
8th century BC and the 2nd century AD),appendices
to religious texts which give simple rules for
constructing altars of various shapes, such as
squares, rectangles, parallelograms, and others. As
with Egypt, the preoccupation with temple functions
points to an origin of mathematics in religious ritual.
The Sulba Sutras give methods for constructing a
circle with approximately the same area as a given
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square, which imply several different approximations
of the value of π.In addition, they compute the
square root of 2 to several decimal places, list
Pythagorean triples, and give a statement of the
Pythagorean theorem. All of these results are
present in Babylonian mathematics, indicating
Mesopotamian influence. It is not known to what
extent the Sulba Sutras influenced later Indian
mathematicians. As in China, there is a lack of
continuity in Indian mathematics; significant
advances are separated by long periods of inactivity.

Pāṇini (c. 5th century BC) formulated the rules for

Sanskrit grammar. His notation was similar to
modern mathematical notation, and used metarules,
transformations, and recursion. Pingala (roughly
3rd–1st centuries BC) in his treatise of prosody uses
a device corresponding to a binary numeral system.
His discussion of the combinatorics of metres
corresponds to an elementary version of the
binomial theorem. Pingala's work also contains the
basic ideas of Fibonacci numbers (called
mātrāmeru).

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 Also in the 14th century, Madhava of
Sangamagrama, the founder of the Kerala School of
Mathematics, found the Madhava–Leibniz series
and obtained from it a transformed series, whose
first 21 terms he used to compute the value of π as
3.14159265359. Madhava also found the
Madhava-Gregory series to determine the
arctangent, the Madhava-Newton power series to
determine sine and cosine and the Taylor
approximation for sine and cosine functions. In the
16th century, Jyesthadeva consolidated many of the
Kerala School's developments and theorems in the
Yukti-bhāṣā. It has been argued that the advances
of the Kerala school, which laid the foundations of
the classical analysis, were transmitted to Europe in
the 16th century via Jesuit missionaries and traders
who were active around the ancient port of Muziris
at the time and, as a result, directly influenced later
European developments in analysis and calculus.
However, other scholars argue that the Kerala
School did not formulate a systematic theory of
differentiation and integration, and that there is not
any direct evidence of their results being transmitted
outside Kerala.

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 8. Modern Mathematics
Throughout the 19th century mathematics became
increasingly abstract. Carl Friedrich Gauss
(1777–1855) epitomises this trend.[citation needed]
He did revolutionary work on functions of complex
variables, in geometry, and on the convergence of
series, leaving aside his many contributions to
science. He also gave the first satisfactory proofs of
the fundamental theorem of algebra and of the
quadratic reciprocity law.

Behaviour of lines with a common perpendicular in

each of the three types of geometry

This century saw the development of the two forms

of non-Euclidean geometry, where the parallel
postulate of Euclidean geometry no longer holds.
The Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich
Lobachevsky and his rival, the Hungarian
mathematician János Bolyai, independently defined
and studied hyperbolic geometry, where uniqueness

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 of parallels no longer holds. In this geometry the
sum of angles in a triangle add up to less than 180°.
Elliptic geometry was developed later in the 19th
century by the German mathematician Bernhard
Riemann; here no parallel can be found and the
angles in a triangle add up to more than 180°.
Riemann also developed Riemannian geometry,
which unifies and vastly generalises the three types
of geometry, and he defined the concept of a
manifold, which generalises the ideas of curves and
surfaces, and set the mathematical foundations for
the theory of general relativity.
The 19th century saw the beginning of a great deal
of abstract algebra. Hermann Grassmann in
Germany gave a first version of vector spaces,
William Rowan Hamilton in Ireland developed
noncommutative algebra. The British mathematician
George Boole devised an algebra that soon evolved
into what is now called Boolean algebra, in which
the only numbers were 0 and 1. Boolean algebra is
the starting point of mathematical logic and has
important applications in electrical engineering and
computer science. Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Bernhard
Riemann, and Karl Weierstrass reformulated the
calculus in a more rigorous fashion.

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 9. REFERENCE

Mathematics and its history

-By John Stillwell

A History of Mathematics
-By Uta C. Merzbach

History of mathematics
Volume - II
-By David E. Smith

MATHEMATICS NCERT BOOK CLASS 12

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