SEME 101 History of Mathematics

DON MARIANO MARCOS MEMORIAL STATE UNIVERSITY
North La Union Campus

Bacnotan, La Union
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
(SEME 101)
MYKO G. GALDONES
MAY ANN ROSE O. ESTILONG-MONTEMAYOR
[DOCUMENT TITLE] -Module I-

Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University
NORTH LA UNION CAMPUS
Bacnotan, La Union, Philippines
(SEME 101)
(1st Semester 2020)
MYKO G. GALDONES
MAY ANN ROSE O. ESTILONG-MONTEMAYOR
i
Course Outline
in
(SEME 101)
 COURSE DESCRIPTION
The course consists of five (5) modules. The course presents the humanistic
aspects of mathematics which provides the historical context and timeline that led to
the present understanding and applications of the different branches of mathematics
Topics included in this course are not very technical and rigid aspects of
mathematics; rather they are early, interesting, and light developments of the field.
They are intended to enrich the background of the students in the hope that the
students find value and inspiration in the historical approach to the mathematical
concepts.
COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course, the pre-service teachers should be able to:
a. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the historical facts and landmarks

that led to the development of the different branches and schools of thought in
mathematics;
b. show critical and creative thinking in analyzing popular problems involving

foundational concepts in mathematics; and
c. manifest appreciation for mathematics as a dynamic field through sharing of

personal experiences of enlightenment relative to the evolution of the different
branches of mathematics.
 1.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Regularly attend the class

2. Have active class participation
3. Take the oral and written quizzes
4. Take and pass the required periodical examination; and
5. Submit the required reaction papers and reports before the end of the term
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 GRADING SYSTEM
Module Assignments - 40%

Activities
Midterm/Final Examination - 60%
Total 100%
 COURSE CONTENT
Module I: The Development of mathematics: ancient period

Lesson 1 Origins of Mathematics: Mayan, Egypt and Babylonian
Lesson 2 Mathematics of Ancient Greece
Lesson 3 Islam, Hindu/Arab and Chinese Mathematics
Module II: The Development of mathematics: a historical overview:

Medieval Period
Lesson 1 Medieval period and the Renaissance
Lesson 2 Birth of the Calculus
Lesson 3 Euler, Fermat and Descartes
Module III: The Development of mathematics: a historical overview:

Modern Period
Lesson 1 Non-Euclidean Geometries
Lesson 2 Modern algebra and number theory
Lesson 3 Birth of set theory and problems in the foundations of mathematics
Module IV: The Nature of Mathematics

Lesson 1 What is mathematics?
Lesson 2 What do mathematicians do?
Lesson 3 Is mathematics invented or created?
Module V: Issues and Aspects

Lesson 1 The concepts and role of the proof
Lesson 2 Mathematics and technology: the role of computers
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MODULE I
The Development of mathematics:

ancient period
LESSON 1 - Origins of Mathematics:

Mayan, Egypt and
Babylonian
LESSON 2 - Mathematics of Ancient

Greece
LESSON 3 - Islam, Hindu/Arab and

Chinese Mathematics
SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module I-

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MODULE I
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATHEMATICS: ANCIENT PERIOD
 INTRODUCTION
This module presents the development of mathematics. It is where your will

learn the evolution of number system. How different ancient period have their own
writing and computations.
OBJECTIVES
After studying the module, you should be able to:
1. discuss the development of mathematics in the ancient period

2. show the evolution of numeration systems in ancient times
3. recognize the symbols and notations used
4. perform the mathematical operations used in this period
 DIRECTIONS/ MODULE ORGANIZER
There are three lessons in the module. Read each lesson carefully then answer
the exercises/activities to find out how much you have benefited from it. Work on
these exercises carefully and submit your output to your instructor.
In case you encounter difficulty, discuss this with your instructor during the
face-to-face meeting. If not contact your instructor thru online.
Good luck and happy reading!!!

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Lesson 1
 THE MAYAN NUMBER SYSTEM
The Mayan civilization had settled in the

region of Central America from about 2000
BCE, although the so called Classic Period
stretches from about 250 CE to 900 CE.
The importance of astronomy and

calendar calculations in Mayan society required
mathematics and the Mayan constructed quite
early a very sophisticated number system,
possibly more advanced than any other in the
world at the time the dating developments is
quite difficult.
Around 400 C.E. the Maya Indians

developed their number systems in conjunction
with growing interest in the calendar.
There were two numeral systems

developed by the Mayans-one for the common
people and one for the priests. Not only did these two systems use different
symbols, they also used different base systems. For the priest, the number system
was governed by ritual. Since the basic calendar was based on 360 days, the priestly
numeral system used a mixed base system employing multiples of 20 and 360. This
makes for a confusing system, the details of which we will skip in this particular
course.
In order to write numbers down, there were only three symbols needed in this
system. A horizontal bar represented the quantity 5, a dot represented the quantity
1, and a special symbol (thought to be a shell) represented zero.
5 1 0
Instead, we will focus on the numerical system of the ―common‖ people, which
used a more consistent base system. The Mayan used a base-20 system, called the
―vigesimal‖ system.

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The Mayan system may have been the first to make use of zero as a
placeholder/number. The pre-classic Maya and their neighbors had independently
developed the concept of zero by at least as early as 36 BCE.
The first 20 numbers are shown in the table that follows:
When numbers are written in
vertical form, there should never be
more than four dots in single place,
every group of five dots become one
bar. Also, there should never be more
than three bars in a single place, four
bars would be converted to one dot in
the next place up. Their number system
was almost exclusively used for
calculations pertaining to their
calendar, where it served them well.
The Mayan used a place value

system based on 20‘s not like the
number system use today. For numbers
greater the number 19 were written in a
kind of vertical place value format
using powers of 20: 20‘s (20x1), 400‘s
(20x20), 8,000 (20x400), and so on,
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 Mayan
system places the ones on the bottom of
a vertical orientation and moves up as
the place value increases.
 303 was written as three lines in

the 20‘s place, and three dots in the 1‘s
place: ((5+5+5) x 20) + (1+1+1))
 420 was written with one in the
400s place, one dot in the 20s place, and one
shell in the 1s place: (1x400) + (1x20) + (0x1)
 4,008 was written as two lines in
the 400s place, one shell in the 20s place, and
three dots above a line in the 1s place: (
10x400) + (0x20) + (8x1)

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EGYPTIAN NUMBER SYSTEM
The Ancient Egyptians

were possibly the first
civilization to practice the
scientific arts. Indeed, the word
―chemistry” is derived from the
word ―Alchemy” which is the
ancient name for ―Egypt”. Where
the Egyptians really excelled was
in medicine and applied
mathematics. But although there
is a large body of papyrus
literature describing their
achievements in medicine, there
are no records of how they reached their mathematical conclusions. Of course they must have
had an advanced understanding of the subject because their exploits in engineering,
astronomy and administration would not have been possible without it.
The Egyptians used a written numeration that was changed into hieroglyphic writing,
which enabled them to note whole numbers to 1,000,000. It had a decimal base and allowed
for the additive principle. In this notation there was a special sign for every power of ten. For
I, a vertical line; for 10, a sign with the shape of an upside down U; for 100, a spiral rope; for
1000, a lotus blossom; for 10,000, a raised finger, slightly bent; for 100,000, a tadpole; and
for 1,000,000, a kneeling genie with upraised arms.
Decimal Egyptian
Number Symbol
1= Staff
10 = heel bone
100 = coil of rope
1000 = lotus flower
10,000 = pointing finger
100,000 = tadpole
1,000,000 astonished
= man

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Example 1.
1= 10 = 100 = 1000 =
2= 20 = 200 = 2000 =
3= 30 = 300 = 3000 =
4= 40 = 400 = 4000 =
5= 50 = 500 = 5000 =
Writing the numbers, the largest decimal order would be written first. The numbers were
written from right to left.
Example 2.
46,206 =
Below are some examples from tomb inscriptions.

A B C D
77 700 7000 760,000
Addition and Subtraction

The techniques used by the Egyptians for these are essentially the same as those used
by modern mathematicians today. The Egyptians added by combining symbols. They would
combine all the units ( ) together, then all of the tens ( ) together, then all of the
hundreds ( ), etc. If the scribe had more than ten units ( ), he would replace those ten
units by . He would continue to do this until the number of units left was less than ten. This
process was continued for the tens, replacing ten tens with , etc.
For example, if the scribe wanted to add 456 and 265, his problem would look like this
(= 456)

7
(= 265)
The scribe would then combine all like symbols to get something like the following:
He would then replace the eleven units ( ) with a unit ( ) and a ten ( ). He would then have
one unit and twelve tens. The twelve tens would be replaced by two tens and one one-
hundred. When he was finished he would have 721, which he would write as
.
Subtraction was done much the same way as we do it except that when one has to borrow, it
is done with writing ten symbols instead of a single one.
Multiplication
Egyptians method of multiplication is fairly clever, but can take longer than the
modern day method. This is how they would have multiplied 5 by 29.
*1 29
2 58
*4 116
1 + 4 = 5 29 + 116 = 145
When multiplying they would began with the number they were multiplying by 29 and
double it for each line. Then they went back and picked out the numbers in the first column
that added up to the first number (5). They used the distributive property of multiplication
over addition.
29(5) = 29(1 + 4) = 29 + 116 = 145
Division
The way they did division was similar to their multiplication. For the problem 98/7,
they thought of this problem as 7 times some number equals 98. Again the problem was
worked in columns.
1 7
2 *14
4 *28
8 *56

8
2 + 4 + 8 = 14 14 + 28 + 56 = 98
This time the numbers in the right-hand column are marked which sum to 98 then the
corresponding numbers in the left-hand column are summed to get the quotient.
So the answer is 14. 98 = 14 + 28 + 56 = 7(2 + 4 + 8) = 7*14
This hieroglyphic numeration was a written version of a concrete counting system
using material objects. To represent a number, the sign for each decimal order was repeated
as many times as necessary. To make it easier to read the repeated signs they were placed in
groups of two, three, or four and arranged vertically.
Ancient Egyptians had an understanding of fractions, however they did not write
simple fractions as 3/5 or 4/9 because of restrictions in notation. The Egyptian scribe wrote
fractions with the numerator of 1. They used the hieroglyph "an open mouth" above the
number to indicate it‘s reciprocal. The number 5, written , as a fraction 1/5 would be
written . There are some exceptions. There was a special hieroglyph for 2/3, and
some evidence that 3/4 also had a special hieroglyph. All other fractions were written as the
sum of unit fractions. For example 3/8 was written as 1/4 + 1/8.
For example 1/2, 1/7, 1/34.
Unit fractions are written additively:

1/4 1/26 means 1/4 + 1/26 and 1/4 + 1/28 = our 2/7.
The Egyptians had a need for fractions, such as the division of food, supplies, either
equally or in a specific ratio. For example a division of 3 loaves among 5 men would require
the fraction of 3/5. As new situations arose the Egyptians developed special techniques for
dealing with the notation they already had, which meant the fraction was expressed as a sum
of the unit fraction. Today as new concepts arise, mathematicians devise n new notation to
deal with the situation.
Fractions were so important to the Egyptians that of the 87 problems in the Rhind
Mathematical Papyrus only six did not involve fractions. Because the Egyptians performed
their multiplications and divisions by doubling and halving, it was necessary to be able to
double fractions. The scribes would create tables with calculations of fractions along with
integers. These tables would be used as references so that temple personnel could carry out
the fractional divisions on the food and supplies.
The hieroglyph for ‗R‘ was used as the word ‗part‘. For example:
In one of the ancient stories the god Seth attacked his brother the god Horus and
gouged out his eye and then tore it to pieces. Fortunately for Horus the god Thoth was able to
put the pieces back together and heal his eye.
In honour of this story the ancient Egyptians also used the pieces of Horus‘s eye to
describe fractions.
The right side of the eye = 1/2

The pupil = 1/4
The eyebrow = 1/8

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The left side of the eye = 1/16

The curved tail = 1/32
The teardrop = 1/64
Hieratic Numbers
The number system was cumbersome, so a shorthand version was developed for
use in Hieratic but the Hieratic version had even more symbols, and still no place
value. 1,2,3,4……10,20,30………100,200,300,….. all were separate symbols.

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THE BABYLONIAN NUMERAL SYSTEM
The first knowledge of mankind about the use

of mathematics comes from the Egyptians and
Babylonians. Both civilizations developed
mathematics that was similar in scope but different
in particulars.
The Babylonian civilization has its roots dating

to 4000 BCE with the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. The
little that is known, the Sumerians of the
Mesopotamian valley-built homes and temples and
decorated them with artistic pottery and mosaics in
geometric patterns. They drained marshes for
agriculture, developed trade and established industries including weaving,
leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery. The people called Sumerians, whose
language prevailed in the territory, probably came from around Anatolia, probably
arriving in Sumer about 3300 BC.
It probably antedates the Egyptian hieroglyphic may have been the earliest
form of written communication. The Mesopotamian civilizations are often called
Babylonian. The dates of the Mesopotamian civilizations date from 2000-600 BCE. The
Babylonian texts come to us in the form of clay tablets, usually about the size of a
hand. They were inscribed in cuneiform, a wedge-shaped writing owing its
appearance to the stylus that was used to make it.
Two types of mathematical tablets are generally found, table-texts and

problem texts. Table-texts are just that, tables of values for some purpose, such as
multiplication tables, weights and measures tables, reciprocal tables, and the like.
The second class of tablets is concerned with the solutions or methods of solution to
algebraic or geometrical problems. Some tables contain up to two hundred problems,
of gradual increasing difficulty.
The use of cuneiform script formed a strong bond. Laws, tax accounts, stories,
school lessons, personal letters were impressed on soft clay tablets and then were
baked in the hot sun or in ovens.
Babylonian Mathematics refers to mathematics developed in Mesopotamia,

from the days of the early Sumerians to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC and is especially
known for the development of the Babylonian Numeral System.
The fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates valleys is regarded as the
seat of human civilization, the place where humanity first began to develop urban
centers and move away from a semi-nomadic existence.
The main contribution of the Sumerians and Babylonians was the

11
development of writing with their cuneiform script, an advance that allowed record
keeping and
knowledge to be preserved and passed down through the generations. Many of these
records, preserved on clay tablets, have been discovered by
archaeologists and translated, revealing information about the daily life of

these ancient people.
The Babylonian Numerals
The Babylonians developed a system for writing down numbers, using symbols
for singles, tens, and hundreds, showing that they probably used a decimal system for
everyday life. This system allowed them to handle large numbers comfortably and
perform all of the major arithmetical functions. However, there is no evidence that
they used a number for zero, and they did not use fractions.
However, the Sumerians also used a base 60 system of counting, the reason
why we still divide a circle into 360 degrees and count hours, minutes, and seconds.
This sexagesimal system was used for weights and measures, astronomy, and for the
development of mathematical functions.

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Vertical- the character for 1. If the ree is turned with the

thick end up and the pointed end down, it is the symbol for 1.
Horizontal- the character for 10. If the reed is turned

with the thick end to the right and the pointed end to the left,
it is the symbol for 10.
Counting by Tens
For example, one tablet lists the squares of all of the numbers up to 602, and
sexagesimal numbering is used for the numbers greater than 60 - 64 is written as
60+4, 81 as 60+21…This idea of using position to arrange integers, known as the
principle of position, is the first known use of such a system, the basis of our decimal
system. Their system of numbering implies that they may have understood zero but,
until further evidence is found, that remains largely conjectural.
In the Mesopotamian/Babylonian system, numbers that are 60 times larger or

60 times smaller are all written on the same way.
Example,

13
Because of the large base, multiplication was carried out with the aid of a
table. Yet, there is no table of such a magnitude. Instead there are tables up to 20
and then selected values greater (i.e. 30, 40, and 50). The practitioner would be
expected to decompose the number into a sum of smaller numbers and use
multiplicative distributivity.
For enumeration the Babylonians used symbols for 1, 10, 60, 600, 3,600,
36,000, and 216,000, similar to the earlier period.

14
Lesson 2
 GREEK NUMBER SYSTEM
"Ten is the very nature of number. All Greeks and all Barbarians‘ count up to
ten, and having reached ten revert again to the unity. And again, Pythagoras
maintains, the power of the number 10 lies in the number 4, the tetrad. This is the
reason: if one starts at the unit (1) and adds the successive number up to 4, one will
make up the number 10 (1+2+3+4 = 10). And if one exceeds the tetrad, one will
exceed 10 too, so that the number by the unit resides in the number 10, but
potentially in the number 4.
Strange enough even if 10 was a special number, the Greeks used two rather
complex systems of number representation. The first Herodianic, found in inscriptions
and laws since the 5th century BC represents basic numbers by the first letter of the
denoting word: P for five (penta), D for ten (deka) etc. Other numbers are
represented by the basic ones by juxtaposition. The system is used to represent
money or weight units, accomplished by the initial letter of the denoting word: T
for Talent. A Mixture of the symbols D and T is used to symbolize Deka Talents ie. Ten
talents. The system is also called acrophonic from acron and phone (topmost voice).
A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon
thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The
court was seated, and the books were opened. Daniel 7:10. This shows that Daniel
could count only up to 100 million the largest number that could be represented by
conventional Greek numbers. With Archimedes many more can enter in the Paradise
or the Hell.
The second system uses the Greek alphabet and three Phoenician letters for
the 27 symbols used to represent the numbers from 1 to 10, the tenths from 20 to 100
and the hundreds from 200 to 900. Other multiples and fractions can be created by
apices.

15
Alphanumeric system of numbers, 2 versions for 6. The Digamma looks like a double
Gamma which represents 3. Note that there is no 0.
THALES OF MILETUS
Thales, an engineer by trade, was the first of the

Seven Sages, or wise men of Ancient Greece. Thales is known
as the first Greek philosopher, mathematician and scientist.
He founded the geometry of lines, so is given credit for
introducing abstract geometry.
He was the founder of the Ionian school of philosophy

in Miletus, and the teacher of Anaximander. During Thales'
time, Miletus was an important Greek metropolis in Asia
Minor, known for scholarship. Several schools were founded
in Miletus, attracting scientists, philosophers, architects and
geographers
It is possible that Thales has been given credit for discoveries that were not
really his. He is known for his theoretical as well as practical understanding of
geometry. Thales is acknowledged by a number of sources as the one who defined the
constellation Ursa Minor and used it for navigation. Some believe he wrote a book on
navigation, but it has never been found.
Two letters and some verses of Thales are quoted by Diogenes Laertius in his
Lives of the Philosophers. Much of what we know of Thales as a philosopher comes
from Aristotle. Herodotus, who lived approximately sixty years after Thales, also
wrote about him, as did Eudemus, the first major historian of mathematics. Proclus,
who wrote in about 450 AD, cited Eudemus' History of Geometry, now lost, as his

16
source. Thales is credited with introducing the concepts of logical proof for abstract
propositions.
Thales went to Egypt and studied with the priests, where he learned of
mathematical innovations and brought this knowledge back to Greece. Thales also did
geometrical research and, using triangles, applied his understanding of geometry to
calculate the distance from shore of ships at sea. This was particularly important to
the Greeks, whether the ships were coming to trade or to do battle. Thales advised
Anaximander's student, Pythagoras, to visit Egypt in order to continue his studies in
mathematics and philosophy.
While Thales was in Egypt, he was supposedly able to determine the height of a
pyramid by measuring the length of its shadow when the length of his own shadow
was equal to his height. Thales learned about the Egyptian rope-pullers and their
methods of surveying land for the Pharaoh using stakes and ropes. Property
boundaries had to be re-established each year after the Nile flooded. After Thales
returned to Greece about 585 BC with notes about what he had learned, and Greek
mathematicians translated the rope-and-stake methods of the rope pullers into a
system of points, lines and arcs. They also took geometry from the fields to the page
by employing two drawing tools, the straightedge for straight lines and the compass
for arcs. The Greeks named their paper explorations "geometry" for "earth measure,"
in honor of the Egyptians from whom the knowledge came.
Thales is credited with the following five theorems of geometry:
1. A circle is bisected by its diameter.

2. Angles at the base of any isosceles triangle are equal.
3. If two straight lines intersect, the opposite angles formed are equal.
4. If one triangle has two angles and one side equal to another triangle, the
two triangles are equal in all respects. (See Congruence)
5. Any angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle. This is known as
Thales' Theorem.
The Egyptians and Babylonians must have understood the above theorems, but
there is no known recorded proof before Thales. He used two of his earlier findings --
that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal, and the total sum of the angles
in a triangle equals two right angles -- in order to prove theorem #5. According to
Diogenes Laertius, when Thales discovered this theorem, he sacrificed an ox!
Thales bridged the worlds of myth and reason with his belief that to understand
the world, one must know its nature ('physis', hence the modern 'physics'). He
believed that all phenomena could be explained in natural terms, contrary to the
popular belief at the time that supernatural forces determined almost everything.
Thales professed it was "not what we know, but how we know it" (the scientific
method). His contributions elevated measurements from practical to philosophical
logic.

17
There are many recorded tales about Thales, some complimentary and others
critical:
Herodotus noted that Thales predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BC, a notable
advancement for Greek science. Aristotle reported that Thales used his skills at
recognizing weather patterns to predict that the next season's olive crop would be
bountiful. He purchased all the olive presses in the area, and made a fortune when
the prediction came true.
Plato told a story of Thales gazing at the night sky, not watching where he
walked, and so fell into a ditch. The servant girl who came to help him up then said
to him "How do you expect to understand what is going on up in the sky if you do not
even see what is at your feet?"
Quotations attributed to Thales
"A multitude of words is no proof of a prudent mind."

"Hope is the poor man's bread."
"The past is certain, the future obscure."
"Nothing is more active than thought, for it travels over the universe, and
nothing is stronger than necessity for all must submit to it."
 "Know thyself."
PYTHAGORAS
Pythagoras is often referred to as the first pure

mathematician. He was born on the island of Samos, Greece
in 569 BC. Various writings place his death between 500 BC
and 475 BC in Metapontum, Lucania, Italy. His father,
Mnesarchus, was a gem merchant. His mother's name was
Pythais. Pythagoras had two or three brothers.
Some historians say that Pythagoras was married to a

woman named Theano and had a daughter Damo, and a son
named Telauges, who succeeded Pythagoras as a teacher
and possibly taught Empedocles. Others say that Theano was
one of his students, not his wife, and say that Pythagoras never married and had no
children.
Pythagoras was well educated, and he played the lyre throughout his lifetime,
knew poetry and recited Homer. He was interested in mathematics, philosophy,
astronomy and music, and was greatly influenced by Pherekydes (philosophy), Thales
(mathematics and astronomy) and Anaximander (philosophy, geometry).
Pythagoras left Samos for Egypt in about 535 B.C. to study with the priests in
the temples. Many of the practices of the society he created later in Italy can be

18
traced to the beliefs of Egyptian priests, such as the codes of secrecy, striving for
purity, and refusal to eat beans or to wear animal skins as clothing.
Ten years later, when Persia invaded Egypt, Pythagoras was taken prisoner and
sent to Babylon (in what is now Iraq), where he met the Magoi, priests who taught
him sacred rites. Iamblichus (250-330 AD), a Syrian philosopher, wrote about
Pythagoras, "He also reached the acme of perfection in arithmetic and music and the
other mathematical sciences taught by the Babylonians..."
In 520 BC, Pythagoras, now a free man, left Babylon and returned to Samos,
and sometime later began a school called The Semicircle. His methods of teaching
were not popular with the leaders of Samos, and their desire for him to become
involved in politics did not appeal to him, so he left.
Pythagoras settled in Crotona, a Greek colony in southern Italy, about 518 BC,
and founded a philosophical and religious school where his many followers lived and
worked. The Pythagoreans lived by rules of behavior, including when they spoke,
what they wore and what they ate. Pythagoras was the Master of the society, and the
followers, both men and women, who also lived there, were known as mathematikoi.
They had no personal possessions and were vegetarians. Another group of followers
who lived apart from the school were allowed to have personal possessions and were
not expected to be vegetarians. They all worked communally on discoveries and
theories. Pythagoras believed:
 All things are numbers. Mathematics is the basis for everything, and
geometry is the highest form of mathematical studies. The physical
world can understood through mathematics.
 The soul resides in the brain, and is immortal. It moves from one being
to another, sometimes from a human into an animal, through a series of
reincarnations called transmigration until it becomes pure. Pythagoras
believed that both mathematics and music could purify.
 Numbers have personalities, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.
 The world depends upon the interaction of opposites, such as male and
female, lightness and darkness, warm and cold, dry and moist, light and
heavy, fast and slow.
 Certain symbols have a mystical significance.
 All members of the society should observe strict loyalty and secrecy.
Because of the strict secrecy among the members of Pythagoras' society, and
the fact that they shared ideas and intellectual discoveries within the group and did
not give individuals credit, it is difficult to be certain whether all the theorems
attributed to Pythagoras were originally his, or whether they came from the
communal society of the Pythagoreans. Some of the students of Pythagoras eventually
wrote down the theories, teachings and discoveries of the group, but the
Pythagoreans always gave credit to Pythagoras as the Master for:
1. The sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles.

19
2. The theorem of Pythagoras - for a right-angled triangle the square on the

hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. The
Babylonians understood this 1000 years earlier, but Pythagoras proved it.
3. Constructing figures of a given area and geometrical algebra. For example they
solved various equations by geometrical means.
4. The discovery of irrational numbers is attributed to the Pythagoreans, but
seems unlikely to have been the idea of Pythagoras because it does not align
with his philosophy the all things are numbers, since number to him meant the
ratio of two whole numbers.
5. The five regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron,
dodecahedron). It is believed that Pythagoras knew how to construct the first
three but not last two.
6. Pythagoras taught that Earth was a sphere in the center of the Kosmos
(Universe), that the planets, stars, and the universe were spherical because the
sphere was the most perfect solid figure. He also taught that the paths of the
planets were circular. Pythagoras recognized that the morning star was the
same as the evening star, Venus.
Pythagoras studied odd and even numbers, triangular numbers, and perfect
numbers. Pythagoreans contributed to our understanding of angles, triangles, areas,
proportion, polygons, and polyhedra.
Pythagoras also related music to mathematics. He had long played the seven
string lyre, and learned how harmonious the vibrating strings sounded when the
lengths of the strings were proportional to whole numbers, such as 2:1, 3:2, 4:3.
Pythagoreans also realized that this knowledge could be applied to other musical
instruments.
The reports of Pythagoras' death are varied. He is said to have been killed by
an angry mob, to have been caught up in a war between the Agrigentum and the
Syracusans and killed by the Syracusans, or been burned out of his school in Crotona
and then went to Metapontum where he starved himself to death. At least two of the
stories include a scene where Pythagoras refuses to trample a crop of bean plants in
order to escape, and because of this, he is caught.
The Pythagorean Theorem is a cornerstone of mathematics, and continues to

be so interesting to mathematicians that there are more than 400 different proofs of
the theorem, including an original proof by President Garfield.

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Lesson 3
 ANCIENT INDIAN MATHEMATICS

The Indian Number System is the place value system which as Laplace
comments in the quote ― so simple that its significance and profound importance is no
longer appreciated‖.
One of the important sources of Indian numerals comes from al-Biruni. During
the 1020s al-Biruni made several visits to India. Before he went there he knew already
of Indian Astronomy and mathematics from Arabic translations of some Sanskrit texts.
In India he made a detailed study of Hindu philosophy and he also studied several
branches of Indian science and mathematics.
He wrote 27 works on India and on different areas of Indian sciences. In

particular his account of Indian astronomy and mathematics is a valuable contribution
to the study of the history of Indian science. Referring to the Indian numerals in a
famous book written about 1030 he wrote:
Whilst we use letters for calculations according to their numerical value, the Indians
do not sue letters at all for arithmetic. And just as the shape of the letters that they
use for writing is different in different regions of their country, so the numerical
symbols vary.
It is reasonable to ask where the various symbols for numerals which al-Biruni
saw originated. Historians trace them all back to the Brahmi numerals which came
into being around the middle of the third century BC. Now these Brahmi numerals
were not just symbols for the numbers between 1 and 9. Also there were no special
symbols for 2 and 3, both numbers being constructed from the symbol for 1.
There were
separated Brahmi symbols for 4,5,6,7,8,9 but there
were also symbols for 10,100,1000,…… as well as
20,30,40….., 90 and 200,300, 400….900.
The Brahmi numerals have been found in
inscriptions in caves and on coins in regions near
Poons, Bombay, and Uttar Pradesh. Dating these
numerals tells us that they were in sue over quite a long time span up to the 4th
century AD. Of course different inscriptions differ somewhat in the style of the
symbols.
There is no problem in understanding the symbols for 1,2, and 3. However the
symbos for 4,….,9 appear to us to have no obvious link to the number they represent.
There have been quite a number of theories put forward by historians over many
years as to the origin of these numerals. In Ifrah lists a number put forward.

21
1. The Brahmi numerals came from the Indus valley culture of around 2000 BC.
2. The Brahmi numerals came from Aramaean numerals.
3. The Brahmi numerals came from the Karoshthi alphabet.
4. The Brahmi numerals came from the Brahmi alphabet.
5. The Brahmi numerals came from an earlier alpagbetic numeral system possibly due
to Panini.
6. The Brahmi numerals came from Egypt.
Ifrah examines each of the six hypotheis in turn and rejects them, although one
would have to say that in some cases it is more due to lack of positive evidence rather
than to negative evidence.
Ifrah proposes a theory of his own namely that:
… the first nine Brahmi numerals constituted the vestiges of an old indigenous
numerical notation, where the nine numerals were represented by the corresponding
number of vertical lines… To enable the numerals to be written rapidly, in order to
save time, these groups of lines evolved in much the same manner as those of old
Egyptian Pharonic numerals. Taking into account the kind of material that was
written on in India over the centuries (tree bark or palm leaves) and the limitations
of the tools used for writing (calamus or brush), the shape of the numerals became
more and more complicated with the numerous ligatures, until the numerals no
longer bore any resemblance to the original prototypes.
The Gupta numerals and were spread over large areas by the Gupta empire as
they conquered territory.

22
The Gupta numerals evolved into the Nagari numerals, sometimes called the
Devanagari numerals. This form evolved from the Gupta Numerals beginning around
the 7th century AD and continued to develop from the 11 th century onward. The name
literally means the ‖writing of the gods‖ and it was considered the most beautiful off
all the forms which evolved. For example al-Biruni writes:
What we (the Arabs) use for numerals is a selection of the best and most regular
figures in India.
These ―most regular figures‖ which al-Biruni refers to are the Nagari numerals
which had, by his time, been transmitted into the Arab world. The way in which the
Indian numerals were spread to the rest of the world between the 7th to the 16th
centuries.

23
HINDU – ARABIC NUMBER SYSTEM
The Hindu-Arabic numeration system evolved around A.D. 800. It is basically

the numeration system that is widely used today. The Hindu-Arabic numeral system is
a decimal place-value numeral system. It requires a zero to handle the empty powers
of ten (as in ―205‖). With the nine figures 1, 2, ..., 9 and the symbol 0, any number
can be represented easily. This is the numeral system that we are using today. The
origin of this decimal place value system is supposed in India and its transmission to
the West via the Arabs. However, the actual origins of the important components of
this system, the digits 1 through 9 themselves, the notion of place value, and the use
of 0, are to some extend lost to the historical record.
The following lists 4 main attributes of this numeration system:

First, it uses 10 digits or symbols that can be used in combination to represent all
possible numbers. The digits are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Second, it groups by tens, probably because we have 10 digits on our two hands.
Interestingly enough, the word digit literally means finger or toes. In the Hindu-Arabic
numeration system, ten ones are replaced by one ten, ten tens are replaced by one
hundred, and ten hundreds are replaced by one thousand, 10 one thousand are
replaced by 10 thousands, and so forth...
Third, it uses a place value. Starting from right to left,

 the first number represents how many ones there are
 the second number represents how many tens there are
 the third number represents how many hundreds there are
 the fourth number represents how many thousands there are
 and so on...
Finally, the system is additive and multiplicative. The value of a numeral is found
by multiplying each place value by its corresponding digit and then adding the
resulting products.
Place values: thousand hundred ten one
Digits 4 6 8 7
Numeral value is equal to 4 × 1000 + 6 × 100 + 8 × 10 + 7 × 1 = 4000 + 600 + 80 + 7 =

4687
Notice that the Hindu-Arabic numeration system require requires fewer

symbols to represent numbers as opposed to other numeration system.
Each Hindu-Arabic numeral has a word name. Here is short list:
0: Zero 10: Ten 60: Sixty

1: One 15: Fifteen 65: Sixty-Five
2: Two 20: Twenty 70: Seventy
3: Three 25: Twenty-Five 75: Seventy-Five
4: Four 30: Thirty 80: Eighty

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5: Five 35: Thirty-Five 85: Eighty-Five

6: Six 40: Forty 90: Ninety
7: Seven 45: Forty-Five 95: Ninety-Five
8: Eight 50: Fifty 100: One hundred
9: Nine 55: Fifty-Five
Numbers from 1 through 12 have unique names.

Numbers from 13 through 19 have "teens" as ending and the ending is blended with
names for numbers from 4 through 9.
For numbers from 20 through 99, the tens place is named first followed by a number
from 1 through 10.
Numbers from 100 through 999 are combinations of hundreds and previous names.
INDIAN NUMBER SYSTEM
Let‘s look at some numbers according to Indian Number System.

1 One
10 Ten
100 Hundred
1,000 Thousand
10,000 Ten Thousand
1,00,000 One Lakh
10,00,000 Ten Lakh
1,00,00,000 One Crore
10,00,00,000 Ten Crore
Lakh has 5 zeroes and Crore has 7 zeros. For numbers after Crore,Indians don‘t
generally use any term. They can say 10 crore (8 zeros), 100 crore (9 zeroes), 1000
crore (10 zeroes), 10000 crore (12 zeroes) and so on. Sometimes, they used these
following words:
Arab – 1,00,00,00,000
Kharab – 1,00,00,00,00,000
Neel – 1,00,00,00,00,00,000
Padma – 1,00,00,00,00,00,00,000
Reading of number according to Indian System of Numeration

In Indian System of Numeration periods such as ones, thousands, lakhs, crores,
etc. are used so that number can be easily read.
Let‘s read the below number according to Indian System of Numeration
11, 54, 08, 453
First put the number in their respective places.

25
This number is read as eleven crore fifty four lakh eight thousand four hundred fifty
three.
Marking periods according to Indian System of Numeration
Different periods like ones, thousands, lakhs and crores are separated by
comma (,) starting from the right to differentiate the periods. Start with the first
period, named as ones period, consist the first three digits of the given number. The
second period (i.e. thousands period) is consist of the next two digits of the given
number. The third period (i.e. lakhs period), consist of the next two digits of the
given number. The fourth period (i.e. crores period), consist of the next two digits of
the given number.
Let‘s differentiate periods by placing commas in between.
Example: 457833228
This number is separated by comma as 45, 78, 33, 228
Place Value
Example: 88, 45, 11, 009

26
Expanded Form and Standard Form

When each digit of a given number is written with its place value, we get the
expanded form of the number.
Example: 34, 16, 97, 832
We can expand any given number in three ways:
3 ten crore + 4 crore + 1 ten lakh + 6 lakh + 9 ten thousand + 7 thousand + 8
hundred + 3 ten + 2 one
Or
3 x 10,00,00,000 + 4 x 1,00,00,000 + 1 x 10,00,000 + 6 x 1,00,000 + 9 x 10,000 +
7 x 1,000 + 8 x 100 + 3 x 10 + 2 x 1
Or
30,00,00,000 + 4,00,00,000 + 10,00,000 + 6,00,000 + 90,000 + 7,000 + 800 + 30
+2
Successor and Predecessor
To find the successor of a given number, we add 1 to it and to find predecessor

of a given number, we subtract 1 from it.
Example:
Successor of 99,99,999 is 99,99,999 + 1 = 1,00,00,000
Predecessor of 4,00,00,000 is 4,00,00,000 – 1 = 3,99,99,999
Ascending order
The arrangement of numbers from the smallest to the greatest is called

ascending order. This is also called as increasing order.
Example: 88,88,870 < 7,54,34,108 < 67,65,76,676 < 67,76,78,676
Descending order
The arrangement of numbers from the greatest to the smallest is called descending
order. This is also called as decreasing order.
Example: 67,76,78,676 > 67,65,76,676 > 7,54,34,108 > 88,88,870
Forming greatest and smallest number from given digits
Numbers can be formed using the given digits with or without repetition of digits.

27
CHINESE NUMBER SYSTEM
In 1899, a major discovery was made at the archaeological site at the village of
Xiao dun in the An-yang district of Henan province. Thousands of bones and tortoise
shells were discovered there which had been inscribed with ancient Chinese
characters. The site had been the capital of the kings of the Late Shang dynasty (this
Late Shang is also called the Yin) from the 14th century BC. The last twelve of the
Shang kings ruled here until about 1045 BC and the bones and tortoise shells
discovered there had been used as part of religious ceremonies. Questions were
inscribed on one side of a tortoise shell, the other side of the shell was then
subjected to the heat of a fire, and the cracks which appeared were interpreted as
the answers to the questions coming from ancient ancestors. The importance of these
finds, as far as learning about the ancient Chinese number system, was that many of
the inscriptions contained numerical information about men lost in battle, prisoners
taken in battle, the number of
sacrifices made, the number of
animals killed on hunts, the number
of days or months, etc. The number
system which was used to express this
numerical information was based on
the decimal system and was both
additive and multiplicative in nature.
Here is a selection of the symbols
that were used.
By having multiplicative
properties we mean that 200 is
represented by the symbol for 2 and the symbol for 100, 300 is represented by the
symbol for 3 and the symbol for 100, 400 is represented by the symbol for 4 and the
symbol for 100, etc. Similarly 2000 is represented by the symbol for 2 and the symbol
for 1000, 3000 is represented by the symbol for 3 and the symbol for 1000, 4000 is
represented by the symbol for 4 and the symbol for 1000, etc. There was also a
symbol for 10000 which we have not included in the illustration above but it took the
form of a scorpion. However larger numbers have not been found, the largest number
discovered on the Shang bones and tortoise shells being 30000.
The additive nature of the system was that symbols were juxtaposed to
indicate addition, so that 4359 was represented by the symbol for 4000 followed by
the symbol for 300, followed by the symbol of 50 followed by the symbol for 9. Here is
the way 4359 would appear:

Now this system is not a positional system so it had no need for a zero. For example
the number 5080 is represented by:

28
Because we have not illustrated many numbers above here is one further example of a
Chinese oracular number. Here is 8873:
There are a number of fascinating questions which we can consider about this
number system. Although the representation of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 needs little
explanation, the question as to why particular symbols are used for the other digits is
far less obvious. Two main theories have been put forward.
The first theory suggests that the symbols are phonetic. By this we mean that
since the number nine looks like a fish hook, then perhaps the sound of the word for
'nine' in ancient Chinese was close to the sound of the word for 'fish hook'. Again the
symbol for 1000 is a 'man' so perhaps the word for 'thousand' in ancient Chinese was
close to the sound of the word for 'man'. To take an example from English, the
number 10 is pronounced 'ten'. This sounds like 'hen' so a symbol for a hen might be
appropriate, perhaps modified so that the reader knew that the symbol represented
'ten' rather than 'hen'.
A second theory about the symbols comes from the fact that numbers, and in
fact all writing in this Late Shang period, were only used as part of religious
ceremonies. We have explained above how the inscriptions were used by soothsayers,
who were the priests of the time, in their ceremonies. This theory suggests that the
number symbols are of religious significance. Of course it is possible that some of the
symbols are explained by the first of these theories, while others are explained by the
second. Again symbols such as the scorpion may simply have been used since swarms
of scorpions meant "a large number' to people at that time. Perhaps the symbol for
100 represents a toe (it does look like one), and one might explain this if people at
the time counted up to ten on their fingers, then 100 for each toe, and then 1000 for
the 'man' having counted 'all' parts of the body.
The symbols we have illustrated evolved somewhat over time but were
surprisingly stable in form. However a second form of Chinese numerals began to be
used from the 4th century BC when counting boards came into use. A counting board
consisted of a checker board with rows and columns. Numbers were represented by
little rods made from bamboo or ivory. A number was formed in a row with the units
placed in the right most columns, the tens in the next column to the left, the
hundreds in the next column to
the left etc. The most
significant property of
representing numbers this way
on the counting board was that
it was a natural place valued
system. One in the right most
column represented 1, while
one in the adjacent column to
the left represented 10 etc.

29
Now the numbers from 1 to 9 had to be formed from the rods and a fairly natural way
was found.
Here are two possible representations:

The biggest problem with this notation was that it could lead to possible
confusion. What was |||? It could be 3, or 21, or 12, or even 111. Rods moving slightly
along the row, or not being placed centrally in the squares, would lead to the
incorrect number being represented. The Chinese adopted a clever way to avoid this
problem. They used both forms of the numbers given in the above illustration. In the
units column they used the form in the lower row, while in the tens column they used
the form in the upper row, continuing alternately. For example 1234 is represented
on the counting board by: and 45698
by:
There was still no need for a zero on the counting board for a square was
simply left blank. The alternating forms of the numbers again helped to show that
there was indeed a space. For example 60390 would be represented
as:
Ancient arithmetic texts described how to perform arithmetic operations on

the counting board. For example Sun Zi, in the first chapter of the Sunzi suanjing,
gives instructions on using counting rods to multiply, divide, and compute square
roots.
Xiahou Yang's Xiahou Yang suanjing written in the 5th century AD notes that to
multiply a number by 10, 100, 1000, or 10000 all that needs to be done is that the
rods on the counting board are moved to the left by 1, 2, 3, or 4 squares. Similarly to
divide by 10, 100, 1000, or 10000 the rods are moved to the right by 1, 2, 3, or 4
squares. What is significant here is that Xiahou Yang seems to understand not only
positive powers of 10 but also decimal fractions as negative powers of 10. This
illustrates the significance of using counting board numerals.
Now the Chinese counting board numbers were not just used on a counting
board, although this is clearly their origin. They were used in written texts,
particularly mathematical texts, and the power of the place valued notation led to
the Chinese making significant advances. In particular the "tian yuan" or "coefficient
array method" or "method of the celestial unknown" developed out of the counting
board representation of numbers. This was a notation for an equation and Li Zhi gives
the earliest source of the method, although it must have been invented before his
time.

30
In about the fourteenth century AD the abacus came into use in China.
Certainly this, like the counting board, seems to have been a Chinese invention. In
many ways it was similar to the counting board, except instead of using rods to
represent numbers, they were represented by beads sliding on a wire. Arithmetical
rules for the abacus
were analogous to those of the counting board (even square roots and cube
roots of numbers could be calculated) but it appears that the abacus
was used almost exclusively by merchants who only used the operations of
addition and subtraction.
Here is an illustration of an abacus showing the number 46802.
For numbers up to 4 slide the required number of beads in the lower part up to the
middle bar. For example on the right most wire two is represented. For five or above,
slide one bead above the middle bar down (representing 5), and 1, 2, 3 or 4 beads up
to the middle bar for the numbers 6, 7, 8, or 9 respectively. For example on the wire
three from the right hand side the number 8 is represented (5 for the bead above,
three beads below).
One might reasonably ask why each wire contains enough beads to represent
15. This was to make the intermediate working easier so that in fact numbers bigger
than 9 could be stored on a single wire during a calculation, although by the end such
"carries" would have to be taken over to the wire to the left.
The 5th century Chinese (brush form) numeral system shares some of the best
features of both Egyptian hieroglyphic and Greek alphabetic numerals. It is an
example of a vertically written multiplicative grouping system based on powers of 10.
The digits 1, 2, 3, … , 9 are ciphered in this system, thus avoiding the repetition of
symbols, and special characters exist for 100, 1000, 10,000, and 100,000.

31
Numerals are written from the top downward,

so that represents 5 x 10,000 + 2 x 1000 + 100 + 7 x 10 + 4 = 52,174.
Notice that if only one of a certain power of 10 is intended, then the multiplier 1 is
omitted.

32
CHINESE STICK MULTIPLICATION
Most people you know multiply numbers by the arrangement of digits and
carrying of numbers such as in the figure below for multiplying 23 and 51:
The Chinese interesting used a different method in which sticks were used to
represent the digits of each number and then the intersections of those sticks were
counted in a specific way in order to get the correct product. Let‘s look at one
example below.
Example 1.
In this example, we are multiplying 4 x 3. The four pink lines represent 4 and
the three green lines represent 3. In order to get the product, we just count the
number of orange intersections that the four pink lines and three green lines create.
Thus, we get a product of 12.
But how does this work with numbers which have a tens, hundreds, or
thousands, digits? Let‘s try some more.

33
Example 2.
For this example, we now have two numbers who have both a tens digit and a
ones digit. We should know that when multiplying these numbers we should get a
three number ( a number with a hundreds, tens, and ones digit). Therefore, we have
to look at these intersections in a different way so that we will get a 3 digit number.
The sticks are also organized in order to represent the two digits of each number.
Thus, 16 have one green stick and then a group of six green sticks. The one green
stick represent the tens digit and the six green sticks represent ones digit. Similarly
for 24 we have two purple sticks representing the tens digit and then a group of four
purple sticks representing the ones digit.
The intersections of the ones digits or the group of six green sticks and four
purple sticks within the blue circle will give us the ones digit of our product.
However,we have 24 intersections. So, just like how we multiply we will need to carry
the 2 over to our tens digit. Here we find that there are 16 intersections in the pink
circle, but we have to carry two from the ones digit so we have a total of 18. Then
just like before, we need to carry our 1 over to our hundreds digit. We get our
hundreds digit from the intersection of the tens digit with the tens digit. So, we find
that there are two intersections within the orange circle. Yet, we have carried over a
1 from the previous tens digit so we have a total of 3 for hundreds digit. Thus, our
final is 384.
How about both numbers have 3 digits?

34
Example 3.
In example 3, we are multiplying 123 and 213. We know that the intersection
of the ones digits within the green oval will provide us with our total for the ones
digit. Here we get a total of 9. We then need to find the tens digit of our product.
This total comes from the tens digit of our product. This total comes from the orange
oval where the ones digit (3) of 123 intersects with the tens digit (1) of 213 and the
ones digit (3) of 213 intersects with the tens digit (2) of 123. So our total for the tens
digit is also 9.
Now we can look for our hundreds digit which is the intersections of a hundreds
digit with ones digit and also a tens digit with a tens digit. These intersections are
found within our blue oval and we get a total of 11. This means that we need to carry
one over to the thousandths digit. The thousandths digit can be found by the
intersection of the tens digits with the hundreds digits within the yellow oval. Here
we get a total of 5, yet we carried over 1 from the previous digit so our total becomes
6. Lastly, we have to have our ten-thousandths digit which is the intersection of the
two hundreds digits or the 1 from 123 and the 2 from 213. So within the red oval we
get a total of 2. Thus, our product of 123 and 213 is 26, 199.

35
ISLAM MATHEMATICS
Muslim mathematicians have made significant contributions to different parts

of mathematics including algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, arithmetic, and
so on. The number system and decimal point we use today comes from the Islamic
world. Connected to the decimal system come the fundamental operations: addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division, exponentiation, and extracting the root;
although these fundamental operations are possible without the use of the Hindu-
Arabic decimal system. They are also responsible for the invention of sine and cosine,
the ruler, and the compass. The word algebra comes from ―Al- Jabr‖, which comes
from the book written by Muhammad ibn Musa Khwarizmi, Hisab al-Jabr wa Muqabala.
Al-Khawarizimi was the first to introduce the concept of zero, also known as ―cipher‖
in the Arabic language. De Vaux, a prominent historian stated the following, ―By using
ciphers, (Arabic for zero) the Arabs became the founders of the arithmetic of
everyday life; they made algebra an exact science. The Arabs kept alive higher
intellectual life and the study of science…‖ [23] The chart below shows the numbers
we use today. Below are the Hindu-Arabic numbers, compared to the number written
in the Arabic language.
We will now look at some prominent mathematicians that have contributed

greatly to the development of mathematics.
Al-Khwarizmi on Algebra
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was born around 780 AD

in Baghdad and died around 850 AD. He was a Muslim
mathematician and astronomer, who was known for his major
contribution on Hindu-Arabic numerals and concepts in algebra,
which we will discuss in more detail. Al-Khwarizmi was one of
the first to use zero as a place holder in positional base notation.
The word algorithm actually derives from his name.Al-Khwarizmi
was most known for his book on elementary algebra, Al-Kitāb Al-

36
Mukhtaṣar fī Hisāb Al-Jabr Waʾl-muqābala (―The Compendious Book on Calculation by

Completion and Balancing‖) which is considered one of the first books to be written
on algebra. He also wrote a book where he introduces the Hindu-Arabic numerals and
their arithmetic. His third major book, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ (―The Image of the Earth‖)
presents the coordinates of localities in the known world, including locations in Africa
and Asia. Al-Khwarizmi assisted in the construction of a world map, participated in
the investigation of determining the circumference of the Earth, and he found
volumes of figures such as spheres, cones, and pyramids. He also compiled a set of
astronomical tables based on Hindu and Greek sources. Most of Al-Khwarizmi‘s work
was translated into Latin.
Basic Ideas in Al-Khwarizmi‘s Algebra
According to Al-Khwarizmi, there are three types of quantities: simple numbers

(which we would refer to today as natural numbers), such as 1, 18, and 105; root
numbers, which he considers an unknown values and calls them ―things‖ (which we
would denote today as 𝑥); and wealth, which is the square of the root or unknown,
also known as mal. This is usually denoted as 𝑥2. Also, he states the six basic types of
equations as:
1) Roots equal numbers (𝑛𝑥 = 𝑚).
2) Wealth equal roots (𝑥2 = 𝑛𝑥).
3) Wealth equal numbers (𝑥2 = 𝑚).
4) Numbers and wealth equal roots (𝑚 + 𝑥2 = 𝑛𝑥).
5) Numbers equal roots and wealth (𝑚 = 𝑛𝑥 + 𝑥2).
6) Wealth equals numbers and roots (𝑥2 = 𝑚 + 𝑛𝑥).
We will now look at an example from Al-Khwarizmi‘s work.
Example 1: Solve 𝑥2 + 21 = 10𝑥
Note: Nowadays, we would simply solve this quadratic equation by using what we call
√
the quadratic formula, , or by factoring if the problem is factorable. We
can also graph the function and use graphing as a method to solve.
Solution: The first procedure Al-Khwarizmi uses in solving this problem is show in Fig.
1, where he first halves the number of roots, where he receives 5. He then multiplies
5 by itself, where he receives 25. Next, he subtracts 21 from this product, where he
receives 4. Further, he takes the square root of 4, where he obtains 2, and subtracts
that from 5, where he then receives 3.
Fig. 1

37
In his second procedure, he takes the exact same steps as in procedure 1, however,
this time instead of taking half the roots and subtracting, he takes half the roots and
adds this time. This yields the following expression, as shown in figure 2.
Fig. 2
The solution to figure 2 yields 7. In this procedure, he refers to the 10 as ―the number
of roots‖, and 21 as the simple number.
Al-Khwarizmi describes the general solution of any quadratic equation of type 4
(as shown above), where n represents the number of roots and m represents any
number as the following…
Fig. 3
He stated that there were no solutions whenever he received a number less than zero
under the square root. Nowadays, we call these numbers imaginary. He also
acknowledges that when the number under the square root is equal to zero, then only
one solution exists. Also, whenever Al- Khwarizmi had a coefficient in front of 𝑝𝑥2, he
would divide by p, obtaining 𝑥 ( ) ( ) 𝑥 .This shows that his coefficients were
not restricted to whole numbers only.
We will now turn to another example focusing on the fifth basic types of
equation. In this example, we have 39 = 𝑥2 + 10𝑥, where we have the number equals
roots and wealth. Al-Khwarizmi uses an algebraic proof and a geometric proof. We
will first look at the algebraic proof which is as follows: The first step is to take half
of the roots, 10, which gives us 5. We then multiply it by itself, which is 25. We then
add this to 39, where we receive 64. We take the square root of 64, which is 8 and
subtract it from it half the roots, 5, which leaves us with 3, our solution.
Fig. 4

38
Next, we will take a look at his geometric proof. In the first step, Al-Khwarizmi
starts with a square, where each side length is represented by x. Therefore, the area
of the square is 𝑥2 (figure 4). Now that we have 𝑥2, we must now add 10𝑥. We do this
by adding four rectangles, each 10/4 or 5/2 in length and length x to the square. Here
we now have 𝑥2 + 10𝑥, which in our example equals to 39 (figure 4). Last, Al-
Khwarizmi finds the area of the four little squares, which is 5/2 x 5/2 which gives us
25/4. Thus, the outside square of figure 4 has an area of 25/4 × 4 + 39 since the area
of the 4 squares are 25/4 and we have the 𝑥2 + 10𝑥 left which we already know is
equal to 39. Solving for the area, we receive 25 + 39, which equals 64. Therefore, the
side length of the square is 8, since the square root of 64 is 8 . The side length is
equal to 5/2 + 𝑥 + 5/2.
This can be seen from figure 4 where the two squares have a side length of
5/2. Therefore, 𝑥 + 5 = 8, so 𝑥 = 3. This technique works because once we find the
area of the square above, we can use that to determine what the x-value would equal
by determining its square root.
Abu Kamil on Algebra
Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam was born in about 850 AD,
most likely in Egypt, and died in 930 AD. He was a
Muslim mathematician who was referred to as the
―Egyptian Calculator‖ during the Islamic Golden Age,
which was a period that occurred during the middle ages
in which much of the historical Arab world experienced
a scientific and economic flourishing. It occurred during
the 8th century until about the mid-13th century. Abu
Kamil is considered to be the first mathematician to use
and accept irrational numbers as solutions and as
coefficients to equations. Leonardo Bonacci, a twelfth
century European mathematician, adopted his
mathematical techniques, which allowed Abu Kamil to
play an important role in introducing algebra to Europe,
even after his death. He worked on and solved non-linear simultaneous equations with
three unknown variables. Abu Kamil was one of the first Muslim Mathematicians to
work with powers higher than two; the highest power he worked with was the eighth
power. He understood that 𝑥5 can be expressed in terms of squares, as 𝑥2𝑥2𝑥. For 𝑥6,
he used cubes and expressed it as 𝑥3𝑥3.
Abu Kamil wrote many books on mathematics during his lifetime. Some of these
books include, but are not limited to the following: Kitāb fī al-jabr wa al-muqābala
(Book of Algebra), Kitāb al-ṭarā’if fi’l-ḥisāb (Book of Rare Things in the Art of
Calculation), Kitāb al-mukhammas wa’al-mu‘ashshar (On the Pentagon and Decagon),
and Kitāb al-misāḥa wa al-handasa (On Measurement and Geometry). In his first book,
Book of Algebra, Abu Kamil discusses and solves problems including, but not limited
to, the application of geometry dealing with unknown variables and square roots,
quadratic irrationalities, polygons, indeterminate equations, and recreational

39
mathematics. His book, Book of Rare Things in the Art of Calculation, provides a
number of procedures on finding integral solutions and indeterminate equations. In On
the Pentagon and Decagon, Abu Kamil calculates the numerical approximation for the
side of a regular pentagon in a circle. Lastly, his book On Measurement and Geometry
contains a set of rules for calculating the volume and surface area of solids. We will
now look at some of the examples in his work.
Abu Kamil demonstrates rules and properties of numbers such as 𝒂𝒙 × 𝒃𝒙 = 𝒂𝒃

× 𝒙𝟐 and 𝒂 × (𝒃𝒙) = (𝒂𝒃) × 𝒙. He also shows an example of the distributive property
where he shows that: (𝟏𝟎 − 𝒙) × (𝟏𝟎 − 𝒙) = 𝟏𝟎𝟎 + 𝒙𝟐 − 𝟐𝟎𝒙. Abu Kamil solves this
problem algebraically and geometrically, we will look at his geometric proof.
Proof: In figure 5, let line GA be equivalent to 10 in length and GB, 𝑥.
Fig. 5
By constructing the square AD on the segment GA, we will get that

AB = ED = 𝟏𝟎 − 𝒙. Therefore, the square (ZH) = (𝟏𝟎 – 𝒙) 2, and (GZ) = (GH) = 𝟏𝟎𝒙.
Hence, (EH) = (GH) – (EB) = 𝟏𝟎𝒙 – 𝒙2. Therefore, we have that (EH) + (GZ) = 𝟐𝟎𝒙 − 𝒙𝟐
and we know that the large square is 100 so we have the following:
(𝟏𝟎 − 𝒙)𝟐 = (𝒁𝑯) = 𝟏𝟎𝟎 − (𝟐𝟎𝒙 − 𝒙𝟐) = 𝟏𝟎𝟎 + 𝒙𝟐 − 𝟐𝟎𝒙.
Abu Kamil‘s Illustration on Roots
Assume we have the problem: a square is equal to five of its roots, 𝒙𝟐 = 𝟓𝒙.
The root of the square is always equal to the roots to which the square is equal to, in
our case, 𝟓𝒙. For 𝒙𝟐, we draw a square, abgd, and then divide it into 5 equal
rectangles, as shown if figure 6.

40
Fig. 6
Take note that lines be, ek, kr, rh, and hg are all equivalent and all equal to 1.
Therefore, the line bg is equivalent to 5. Hence, the area of the square is 25, and
from the figure above we can see that the square of 25 is 5. If we multiply the side
length ab by the side length be, that would give us the surface of abec, which is the
root of the square abgd. The surface of the square abgd is equivalent to five times the
root of itself, or five roots.
Abu Kamil on the Rule of False Position
To solve the following problem, Abu Kamil uses the algebraic device known as
―the rule of false position‖, which is the term used for the method used to evaluate a
problem by using ―test‖, or false values for the given variables, and then adjusting
them accordingly. The problem below will show us an example of this.
Example 1: Find a quantity that if increased by its seventh part is equal to 19.
Solution: We have the following algebraic equation: 𝑥 𝑥 . Using false position,

we plug in 7 for x (we use x because it is easy to work with since it eliminates our
fraction) and obtain the following: x 7 which equals 8, rather than 19.
Therefore, we will then divide 19 into 8 and then multiply the result by 7. We will set
this as the following proportion: 19/8 = 𝑥/7. The reason we do this is because when
we plug in 7 the receive 8 as a solution. So the question remains what we must plug
in, in order to receive 19. Once we set up this proportion and solve it for x, we
receive 16.625.
Let‘s look at another example using false position.
Example 2: Solve the systems of equations: 7𝑦 = 13𝑥 + 4 (1)

4𝑦 = 2𝑥 + 176 (2)
Solution: We will use false position and have 𝑦1 = 40. Plugging in for equation (1) we
receive 7(40) = 13𝑥 + 4. Solving for x, we receive that 𝑥1 = 21 3/13. Then, we plug in
𝑥1 and 𝑦1 into the second equation where we receive 4(40) = 2(21 3/13) + 176, where
we get that 160 = 218 6/13. Next, we find the difference of these two numbers:
218 6/13 − 160 = 58 6/13 = 𝑑1.

41
Using false position again, we will plug in 80 for 𝑦2. Plugging in for equation (1) we
receive 7(80) = 13𝑥 + 4. Solving for x, we receive that 𝑥2 = 42 10/13. Then, we plug in
𝑥2 and 𝑦2 into the second equation where we receive 4(80) = 2(42 10/13) + 176, where
we get that 320 = 261 7/13. Next, we find the difference of these two numbers:
261 7/13 − 320 = − 58 6/13 = 𝑑2.
The last step is to solve for y by doing the following: We take our 𝑦2 and multiply it by
our 𝑑1 and multiply our 𝑦1 and 𝑑2. Then we find the difference between the two. Once
we have that, we divide this number by the difference of 𝑑1 and 𝑑2. This can be seen
by the following equation:
Replacing y with 60 in equation (1), we receive that x is equal to 32.
Al-Uqlidisi’s on Hindu Arithmetic
Abu'l Hassan Ahmad ibn Ibrahim Al-Uqlidisi‘s was an

Arab mathematician who was born around 920 AD in
Damascus and died in 980 AD in Damascus. He traveled
widely and met and studied from many mathematicians he
met throughout his traveling. He was the author of Kitab al-
Fusul fi al-Hisab al-Hindi (The Book of Chapters on Hindu
Arithmetic) and Kitab alhajari fi al-hisab(The Book of
Records on Arithmetic). In his work, Uqlidisi focuses on the
positional use of Arabic numerals and decimal fractions,
where we will look at a couple of his examples below. His
treaty on arithmetic is divided into four sections.
In the first part of the treaties, Uqlidisi

introduces the Hindu numerals and explains the
place value system. He describes addition,
multiplication and other arithmetic operations on
integers and fractions in decimal notation. In the
second part of the treatise he collects
arithmetical methods given by earlier mathematicians and converts them in the Indian
system. In the third part, Uqlidisi answers questions the reader may have such as
―why do it this way?‖ or ―how can I solve this?‖ and so on. Some of these questions
involve understanding the justification in performing several arithmetic steps involved
in manipulating problems. Other examples of some of the questions asked are ―how
do we check what we need to check‖ or ―how do we extract roots of numbers‖. In the
last part, he claims that up to this work, the Indian methods have been used with a
blackboard in order to erase and move numbers around as the calculation of the
numbers took place. He also showed how to modify these methods when using pen
and paper.
Al-Uqlidisi‘s work is one of the earliest known texts on how to deal with
decimal fractions. For example, to halve 19 successively, Al-Uqlidisi wrote the

42
following: 9.5, 4.75, 2.375, 1.1875, and 0.59375. Another example of Uqlidisi is where
he increases 135 by its tenth, then the result by its tenth, etc. five times. He first
starts by writing 135 × (1 +1/10). Next, changing the mixed number to an improper
fraction, he receives (135×11)/10. He then gets 148.5. Next he gets 148.5 × (1 +
1/10), which equals to (148.5 × 11)/10. He splits this up as 148 × 11/10 and 0.5 ×
11/10. He calculates 148 × 11/10, which equals 162.8 and 0.5 × 11/10, which equals
0.55. He adds them to get 163.35, which is his answer.
After studying Uqlidisi‘s works, Saidan stated, ―The most remarkable idea in
this work is that of decimal fraction. Al-Uqlidisi uses decimal fractions as such,
appreciates the importance of a decimal sign, and suggests a good one‖.
Al-Uqlidisi‘s was recorded to discover the multiplication of two mixed numbers.

He changed the mixed numbers into improper fractions and multiplied across. In the
example below, we will show exactly how Uqlidisi multiplied two mixed numbers.
Example 1: Multiply 7 and a half by 5 and a third. What is shown below shows how
Uqlidisi set up such problems.
To solve, we first multiply 7 and 2 and add the one, which becomes 15/2. We
then multiply 5 and 3 and add the one, which becomes 16/3. Next, we multiply 15
and 16; receiving 240, then we divide by 6, which gives us 40.
Here, Uqlidisi is simply changing a mixed number into an improper fraction,
then multiplying the numerators across and the denominators across. We use this
exact method today; we only set up the problem a bit differently. We would write
this problem as 7 ½ × 5 ½.
Example 2: Multiply 19 + 1/3 + ¼ by 13 + ½ + 1/5
To solve, we first add the fractions 1/3 with ¼ and ½ with 1/5. To add the fractions,
early mathematicians would find would find a new denominator, which was done by
finding the product of the given denominators, which in our case is 3 and 4 and 2 and

43
5. After adding the numerators, the fractions were then reduced to lowest terms.
Here, we receive 7/12 and 7/10, which we write as…
Now, we can simply solve this problem as we have solved the problem in example 1.
The outcome would be 32,195 out of 120.
Another way to solve this problem is to multiply the 19 by the product of 3 and
4, then add the sum of 3 and 4 to that product and write it over the product of 3 and
4. We do the same to the other; we multiply 13 by the product of 5 and 2, then add
the sum of 5 and 2 to that product and write it over the product of 5 and 2. The
reason this works is because by multiplying the whole number by the product of the
denominators, we are simply multiplying by a common denominator. Then the reason
why we add the sum of the denominators is because if we multiply the fractions by a
common denominator, we end up getting both numbers in the numerator, where we
would add them (this only applies when we have a 1 in the numerator).
Kushyar ibn Labban’s Principles of Hindu Reckoning
Kushyar ibn Labban was a Persian mathematician,

geographer, and astronomer born in Gilan in 971 AD and
thought to have died in Baghdad in 1029 AD. His main work
seems to have taken place during the 11th century. In one
of Labban‘s most major works, the Jāmiʿ Zīj
(Universal/Comprehensive astronomical handbook with
tables), which was influenced by Ptolemy's Almagest and al-
Battānī's Zīj,
contains many tables concerning trigonometry, astronomical functions, star

catalogs, and geographical coordinates of cities. It comprises four books: calculations,
tables, cosmology, and proofs.
One of his most significant contributions was his work on Hindu reckoning. It is
described as follows: ―Kushyar ibn Labban's Principles of Hindu reckoning ... is
singularly important in the history of mathematics, not only for its mathematical
content, but also for its linguistic interest and its relation to earlier and succeeding

44
algorisms. It may be the oldest Arabic mathematical text using Hindu numerals, and
ibn Labban's concepts reveal considerable originality...‖ In the Principles of Hindu
Reckoning, ibn Labban focuses on decimal numbers and discusses the addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers involving decimals. He also
provides different methods on constructing exact square roots, as well as approximate
methods to calculate the square roots of non-square numbers. He also does the same
for exact cube roots and cube root of a non-square number.
In Principles of Hindu Reckoning, Labban focuses on different arithmetic
operations of numbers and fraction. We will look at a few of his examples. It is
important to take note that many of these problems were done on dust boards,
making it easy to erase and replace numbers as shown in the examples below.
Example 1: Add 839 to 5625

We write it as follows…
5625
839 [Fig. 7]
We make sure that all our place values are lined up accordingly.
The first step is to add the highest place value common to both numbers. In this
example it would be 56 and the 8, where we receive 64. We replace the 56 with the
64 as shown in figure 8.
6425
839 [Fig. 8]
Next, we add the 3 and the 2, where we receive 5. We replace the 2 with the 5 as
shown in figure 9.
6455
839 [Fig. 9]
Last, we add the 9 to the 5, where we receive 14. We add the 1 to the 5 in the tens
place of 6455 and replace the 5 in the ones place with the 4 where we receive our
final solution. This is shown in figure 10.
6464
839 [Fig. 10]
Example 2: Subtract 839 from 5,625.

We write it as follows…
5625
839 [Fig.11]
The first step is to subtract 8 from 6; however, because this is not possible, instead,
we subtract 8 from 56, where we receive 48. Hence, this yields the following figure…
4825
839 [Fig. 12]

45
Next, we subtract 3 from the 2; however, because this is not possible, instead, we
subtract it from the 82, where we receive 79. Hence, this yields the following figure…
4795
839 [Fig. 13]
Now, we subtract the 9 from the 5; however, because this is also not possible, will
subtract it from 95 instead, where we receive 86. This will leave us with 4,786, our
final solution.
Example 3: Halve 5,625.
This problem will be solved using base 60, just as the Babylonians solved many of
their problems. The first step is to halve the 5 in the ones place, where we get 2 1/2.
We put the 2 in place of the 5 in the ones place of 5,625 and we place the ½ under.
We will write 30 instead of ½ because we are using base 60. This yields to the
following figure.
5622
30 [Fig. 14]
Next, we halve the 2 in the tens place, where we receive 1 and replace that 2 with
the 1. We also halve the 6, where we receive 3 and replace that 6 with the 3, as
shown in figure 15.
5312
30 [Fig. 15]
Last, we halve the 5 in the thousands place. We actually halve 50 and receive 25. We
place the 2 in place of the 5 and add the 5 from 25 to the 3. This yields our final
solution, shown in figure 16.
2812
30 [Fig. 16]
Example 4: Multiply 325 by 243.

We write this as follows…
325
243 [Fig.17]
The first step is to multiply the 3 of the multiplicand by the 2 of the multiplier which
gives us 6.
We write this as shown in the following figure.
6 325
243 [Fig. 18]
If the product was other than 6 and contained a number in the tens place value, we
would have put the number in the ones place on top of the 2 (same position as it is
now) and the number in the tens place to the left of it.

46
Next, we multiply the 3 of the multiplicand by the 4 of the multiplier which gives us
12. We add the ones from the tens place in 12 to the 6, which gives us 7 and put the 2
to the right of it as shown in figure 19.
72325
243 [Fig. 19]
Now we multiply the 3 of the multiplicand by the 3 of the multiplier to give us 9. We
replace the 3 of the multiplicand with this 9 and we shift the multiplier one place to
the right, as shown in figure 20.
72925
243 [Fig. 20]
Next, we multiply the 2 of the multiplicand (in the tens place) by the 2 in the
multiplier to get 4. We add this to the 2 in the multiplicand and get 6. Then, we
multiply the 2 in the multiplicand with the 4 in the multiplier and get 8. We add this
to the 9 in the multiplicand. Last, we multiply the 2 in the multiplicand with the 3 in
the multiplier, where we get 6. We place this 6 in place of the 2 in the multiplicand.
We then shift the numbers in the multiplier one place to the right, as shown in figure
21.
77765
243 [Fig. 21]
Our final step is to multiply the 5 in the multiplicand by all of the numbers in the
multiplier. First, we multiply it by the 2, which gives us 10. We place add the 1 to the
7 in the multiplicand in the thousands place, as shown in figure 6. Then we multiply
the 5 by the 4 and receive 20. We add the 2 to the 7 in the multiplicand in the
hundreds place, as shown in figure 7. Last we multiply the 5 by the 3 and receive 15.
We add the 1 to the 6 in the multiplicand in the tens place and the 5 replaces the 5 in
the ones place, where we receive our final solution, as shown in figure 24.
78765
243 [Fig. 22]
78965
243 [Fig. 23]
78975
243 [Fig. 24]
Khayyam
Omar Khayyam was born in Persia in 1048 AD and died in 1131 AD.
He was a well-known Persian mathematician, astronomer,
philosopher, and poet. Khayyam was well-known for his work in
geometry, notably his work on proportions. He completed the
algebra treaty, titled ―Treatise on Demonstration of Problems on
Algebra‖. In these treatises he discusses the solution of cubic equations by

47
intersecting conic sections; he intersects a hyperbola with a circle to obtain an

answer for a cubic equation. These treatises are considered the first treatment of
parallel axioms which is based mostly on intuitive postulates.
Khayyam on the Reform of the Persian Calendar
Khayyam was a part of a panel that introduced several modifications to the

Persian calendar; these modifications were accepted as the official calendar of
Persia. The Seljuk Sultan Sultan Jalal al-Din Malekshah Saljuqi invited Khayyam to
reform the Persian calendar in 1073. Accompanied by other admired scientist, the
calendar was completed in 1079, based on Khayyam and other scientists calculations
and was known as the Jalili Calendar. The calendar included 2,820 solar years and
1,029,983 days. The Jalili calendar is agreed to be more accurate than the Gregorian
calendar because it is based on solar transit, which is the movement of any object
passing between the sun and the earth. It also requires an Ephemeris, which is a book
that provides the calculated position of celestial objects at intervals throughout a
period of time. The Jalili calendar had an error of one day in 3,770 years, whereas
the Gregorian calendar has an error of one day for every 3,330 years. Khayyam
measured the length of a year as 365.24219858156 days. He rounds his results to the
nearest eleventh decimal place; it is clear to see the high level of accuracy Khayyam
had.
The Persian calendar is made up of 12 months and they are: Farvardin (31
days),
Ordibehesht (31 days), Khordad (31 days), Tir (31 days), Mordad (31 days), Shahrivar
(31 days), Mehr (30 days), Aban (30 days), Azar (30 days), Day (30 days), Bahman (30
days), Esfand (29 days in an ordinary year and 30 days in a leap year). The first year
begins at vernal equinox, which is when the sun is exactly above the equator and the
northern hemisphere starts to tilt towards the sun. If the vernal equinox falls before
noon on a particular day, then that day is considered the first day and if it falls after
noon, then the next day is considered the first day of the year.
Similarly to the Islamic calendar, years are counted beginning from

Muhammad‘s (peace be upon him) emigration to Medina which took place in AD 622.
The Persian calendar also includes leap years, which occurs when there are 366 days
between two Persian New Year‘s days. Because the Persian calendar is based on the
vernal equinox, there remain constraints on adjusting the beginning of the calendar to
the beginning of the day (midnight). Therefore, the Persian calendar runs short of the
tropical year by about 5h, 48m, 45.2s each year. Further, the length of a year
shortens by 0.00000615th of a day each century. To make up for these losses leaps
years are included mostly every 4 years. Four-year leap years add one-fourth of a day,
or 0.25, to each year in the period. However, this is more than what is lost and
therefore, there is overcompensation. To overcome this, after every 6 to 7 four-year
leap years, there is a five-year leap year, which means the nest leap year occurs after
4 normal years instead of 3.

48
 MODULE SUMMARY
In module I, you have learned about the development of mathematics. You have
learned the development of numbers, importance and kinds. You have also learned
the different mathematicians, symbols, representations and computations.
There are three lessons in module I. Lesson 1 focused on the development of ancient
period in their mathematics.
Lesson 2 deals with ancient Greek mathematics.
Lesson 3 is the development of Indian, Chinese and Islam mathematics and

mathematicians that contributed huge in mathematics
Congratulations! You have just studied Module I. now you are ready to evaluate how
much you have benefited from your reading by answering the summative test. Good
Luck!!!

49
 SUMMATIVE TEST
1. Express each of the given numbers in Egyptian hieroglyphics.

(a) 1492.
(b) 1999.
(c) 12,321.
2. Write each of these Egyptian numbers in our system.
3. Perform the indicated operations and express the answers in hieroglyphics.
4. Multiply the number below by 10, expressing the result in hieroglyphics.
Describe a simple rule for multiplying any Egyptian number by 10.

5. Write the Greek numerals corresponding to
(a) 396.
(b) 1492.
(c) 1999.
6. Convert each of these from Ionian Greek numerals to our system.

50
7. Perform the indicated operations,
8. Express each of the given numbers in Babylonian cuneiform notation.

(a) 1000.
(b) 10,000.
(c) 100,000.
9. Translate each of these into a number in our system.
10. Write the Chinese counting-rod numerals corresponding to

(a) 1492.
(b) 1999.
(c) 1606.
11. Convert these into our numerals.
12. Perform the indicated operations.
13. Express each of the given numbers in traditional Chinese numerals.

(a) 236.
(b) 1492.
(c) 1999.
14. Translate each of these numerals from the Chinese system to our numerals.

51
15. Multiply the given number by 10, expressing the result in Chinese numerals.
16. Write the Mayan Priest numerals corresponding to

(a) 1492.
(b) 1999.
(c) 1066.
17. Convert these numerals from the Mayan Priest system into ours.
18. Perform the indicated operations shown here.

52
19. Convert the following to Hieratic Numbers

(a) 6157
(b) 3409
(c) 134
20. Convert the following to Brahmi Numerals

(a) 4532
(b) 1253
(c) 7281
21. Solve the following using the algebraic proof and geometric proof used by Al-
khwarizmi
(a) x2 + 8x = 48

53
MODULE II
The Development of mathematics: a

historical overview: Medieval Period
LESSON 1 - Medieval period and the

Renaissance
LESSON 2 - Birth of the Calculus
LESSON 3 - Euler, Fermat and

Descartes
54
MODULE II
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATHEMATICS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW:

MEDIEVAL PERIOD
 INTRODUCTION

learn the development of numbers in medieval period, the birth of calculus and get in
touch with some great mathematicians.
OBJECTIVES
1. discuss the development of mathematics in the medieval and renaissance

period
2. discuss the birth of the calculus: Newton and Leibniz
3. identify the giants of mathematics in this period and discuss their
contributions.
SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module II-

55
Lesson 1
 OVERVIEW OF MEDIEVAL PERIOD
During the centuries in which

the Chinese, Indian and Islamic mathematicians
had been in the ascendancy, Europe had fallen
into the Dark Ages, in which science,
mathematics and almost all intellectual
endeavour stagnated.
Scholastic scholars only valued studies in

the humanities, such as philosophy and literature,
and spent much of their energies quarrelling over
subtle subjects in metaphysics and theology, such
as “How many angels can stand on the point of
a needle?”
From the 4th to 12th Centuries, European

knowledge and study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music was limited
mainly to Boethius’ translations of some of the works of ancient Greek masters such
as Nicomachus and Euclid. All trade and calculation was made using the clumsy and
inefficient Roman numeral system, and with an abacus based
on Greek and Roman models.
By the 12th Century, though, Europe, and particularly Italy, was beginning to
trade with the East, and Eastern knowledge gradually began to spread to the West.
Robert of Chester translated Al-Khwarizmi‗s important book on algebra into Latin in
the 12th Century, and the complete text of Euclid‗s ―Elements‖ was translated in
various versions by Adelard of Bath, Herman of Carinthia and Gerard of Cremona. The
great expansion of trade and commerce in general created a growing practical need
for mathematics, and arithmetic entered much more into the lives of common people
and was no longer limited to the academic realm.
The advent of the printing press in the mid-15th Century also had a huge
impact. Numerous books on arithmetic were published for the purpose of teaching
business people computational methods for their commercial needs and mathematics
gradually began to acquire a more important position in education.
Europe‘s first great medieval mathematician was the Italian Leonardo of

Pisa, better known by his nickname Fibonacci. Although best known for the so-called
Fibonacci Sequence of numbers, perhaps his most important contribution to European
mathematics was his role in spreading the use of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system

56
throughout Europe early in the 13th Century, which soon made the Roman numeral
system obsolete, and opened the way for great advances in European mathematics.
An important (but largely unknown and underrated) mathematician and scholar

of the 14th Century was the Frenchman Nicole Oresme. He used a system of
rectangular coordinates centuries before his
countryman René Descartes popularized the
idea, as well as perhaps the first time-speed-
distance graph. Also, leading from his
research into musicology, he was the first to
use fractional exponents, and also worked on
infinite series, being the first to prove that
the harmonic series 1⁄1 + 1⁄2 + 1⁄3 + 1⁄4 + 1⁄5…
is a divergent infinite series (i.e. not tending
to a limit, other than infinity).
The German scholar Regiomontatus

was perhaps the most capable mathematician
of the 15th Century, his main contribution to
mathematics being in the area of
trigonometry. He helped separate
trigonometry from astronomy, and it was largely through his efforts that trigonometry
came to be considered an independent branch of mathematics. His book ―De
Triangulis―, in which he described much of the basic trigonometric knowledge which
is now taught in high school and college, was the first great book on trigonometry to
appear in print.
Mention should also be made of Nicholas of Cusa (or Nicolaus Cusanus), a 15th
Century German philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, whose prescient ideas
on the infinite and the infinitesimal directly influenced later mathematicians
like Gottfried Leibniz and Georg Cantor. He also held some distinctly non-standard
intuitive ideas about the universe and the Earth‘s position in it, and about the
elliptical orbits of the planets and relative motion, which foreshadowed the later
discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler.
Leonardo of Pisa: Fibonacci (1170-1250)
Fibonacci or Leonard of Pisa, played an important

role in reviving ancient mathematics while making
significant contributions of his own. Leonardo Pisano is
better known to us by his nickname Fibonacci, which was
not given him until the mid-nineteenth century by the
mathematical historian Guillaume Libri. He played an
important role in reviving ancient mathematics and made
significant contributions of his own. With his father,
Fibonacci was born in the city-state of Tuscany (now in

57
Italy) but was educated in North Africa where his father held a diplomatic post. He
travelled widely recognizing and the enormous advantages of the mathematical
systems used in these countries.
Leonardo Liber abbaci (Book of the Abacus), published in 1202 after his
return to Italy, is based on bits of arithmetic and algebra that Leonardo had
accumulated during his travels. The title Liber abbaci has the more general meaning
of mathematics and calculations or applied mathematics than the literal translation of
a counting machine. The mathematicians of Tuscany following Leonardo were in fact
called Maestri d Abbaco, and for more than three centuries afterwards learned from
this venerated book. Almost all that is known of his life comes from a short biography
therein, though he was associated with the court of Frederick II, emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire.
The Liber abbaci introduced the Hindu-Arabic place-valued decimal system and
the use of Arabic numerals into Europe. Liber abbaci did not appear in print until the
19th century. A problem in Liber abbaci led to the introduction of the Fibonacci
numbers and the Fibonacci sequence for which Fibonacci is best remembered today.
The Fibonacci Quarterly is a modern journal devoted to studying mathematics related
to this sequence.
Fibonacci‘s other books of major importance are Practica geometriae in 1220

containing a large collection of geometry and trigonometry. Also in Liber quadratorum
in 1225 he approximates a root of a cubic obtaining an answer which in decimal
notation is correct to 9 places.
Liber abbaci
Features of Liber abbaci include:

 a treatise on algebraic
methods and problem which
advocated the use of Hindu-Arabic
numerals. What is remarkable is
that neither European nor Arab
businessmen use these numerals in
their transactions, and when
centuries later they caught on in
Europe, it was the Europeans that
taught the Arabs of their use;
 used the horizontal bar for
fractions;
 in fractions though the older
systems of unit and sexagesimal
were maintained;

58
 contained a discussion of the now-called Fibonacci Sequence –inspired by the

following problem:
―How many pairs of rabbits will be produced in a year, beginning with a single
pair, if in every month each pair bears a new pair which becomes productive from the
second month on.‖
The sequence is given by
which obeys the recursion relation
Properties
So to get
This formula can also be used to prove that lim exists. Also
( ) (prove by induction)
The Golden Ratio ( )
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. 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

59
the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the
smaller one. The Golden Ratio itself has many unique properties, such as 1⁄φ = φ – 1
(0.618…) and φ2 = φ + 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 : φ 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.

60
RENAISSANCE PERIOD
During the Renaissance, development of mathematics and accounting

interwove. Teaching of subjects and books published was often for children of
merchants sent to reckoning schools where they learned skills useful for trade and
commerce. Luca Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et
Proportionalita (Review of Arithmetic, Geometry, Ratio and Proportion) was first
printed and published in Venice, 1494 AD. It included a 27 page treatise on
bookkeeping; Particularis de Computis et Scripturis (Details of Calculation and
Recording). It was primarily for merchants as a reference text, a source of pleasure
from mathematical puzzles and to aid the education of their sons. In his book Summa
Arithmetica, Pacioli introduced symbols for plus and minus that became standard
notation of Italian Renaissance mathematics. Summa Arithmetica was the first book
printed in Italy to contain algebra. Pacioli borrowed much of the work of Piero Della
Francesca.
In Italy, during the first half of the 16th century, Scipione del Ferro and Niccolò
Fontana Tartaglia discovered solutions for cubic equations. Gerolamo Cardano
published them in his book Ars Magna, 1545 AD, together with a solution for the
quartic equations (equations of the 4th degree) discovered by his student Lodovico
Ferrari. In 1572 AD, Rafael Bombelli published his L'Algebra demonstrating
perspectives with imaginary quantities that could appear in Cardano's formula for
solving cubic equations.
Simon Stevin's book, De Thiende (The Art of Tenths), first published in

Dutch, 1585 AD, contained the first systematic treatment of decimal notation that
influenced all later works on real number systems.
Driven by the demands of navigation and a growing need for accurate maps
across larger geographic areas trigonometry became an important branch of
mathematics. Regiomontanus's table of sine and cosine was published in 1533 AD.
Bartholomaeus Pitiscus was first to use the word trigonometry in his Trigonometria,
1595 AD.
During the Renaissance the desire of artists to represent the natural world
realistically, together with the rediscovered philosophy of the Greeks, led them to
study mathematics. Many were scholars, the engineers and architects of that time
who needed mathematics. The art of painting by perspective and the geometries
required were studied intensely.

61
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.
The Super Magic Square
It is a tribute to the respect in

which mathematics was held in
Renaissance Europe that the famed
German artist Albrecht Dürer included an
order-4 magic square in his engraving
―Melencolia I―. In fact, it is a so-called
―super magic square‖ with many more
lines of addition symmetry than a regular
4 x 4 magic square. The year of the work,
1514, is shown in the two bottom central
squares.
An important figure in the late

15th 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… 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

62
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 √ ) 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 competition that the unlikely figure of the young, self-taught Niccolò Fontana
Tartaglia revealed to the world the formula for solving first one type, and later all
types, of cubic equations, an achievement hitherto considered impossible and which
had stumped the best mathematicians of China, India and the Islamic world.
Building on Tartaglia‘s work, another young Italian, Lodovico Ferrari, soon

devised a similar method to solve quartic equations 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 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.
Niccolò Tartaglia, Gerolamo Cardano & Lodovico Ferrari
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 competition, in 1535, that the unlikely figure of the young Venetian Tartaglia
first revealed a mathematical finding hitherto considered impossible, and which had
stumped the best mathematicians of China, India and the Islamic world.
Niccolò Fontana became known as Tartaglia (meaning ―the stammerer‖) for a

speech defect he suffered due to an injury he received in a battle against the
invading French army. He was a poor engineer known for designing fortifications, a
surveyor of topography (seeking the best means of defense or offence in battles) and
a bookkeeper in the Republic of Venice.
But he was also a self-taught, but wildly ambitious, mathematician. He

distinguished himself by producing, among other things, the first Italian translations
of works by Archimedes and Euclid from uncorrupted Greek texts (for two centuries,
Euclid‗s ―Elements‖ had been taught from two Latin translations taken from an Arabic
source, parts of which contained errors making them all but unusable), as well as an
acclaimed compilation of mathematics of his own.

63
Tartaglia’s greates legacy to mathematical history, though, occurred when he

won the 1535 Bologna University mathematics competition by demonstrating
a general algebraic formula for solving cubic
equations, something which had come to be seen by this
time as impossibility, requiring as it does an
understanding of the square roots of negative numbers.
In the competition, he beat Scipione del Ferro (or at
least del Ferro‘s assistant, Fior), who had coincidentally
produced his own partial solution to the cubic equation
problem not long before. Although del Ferro‘s solution
perhaps predated Tartaglia‘s, it was much more limited,
and Tartaglia is usually credited with the first general
solution. In the highly competitive and cut-throat
environment of 16th Century Italy, Tartaglia even
encoded his solution in the form of a poem in an
attempt to make it more difficult for other
Geraloma Cardona (1501 –
mathematicians to steal it.
1576)
Tartaglia’s definitive method was, however,
leaked to Gerolamo Cardano (or Cardan), a rather eccentric and confrontational
mathematician, doctor and Renaissance man, and author throughout his lifetime of
some 131 books. Cardano published it himself in his 1545 book ―Ars Magna‖ (despite
having promised Tartaglia that he would not), along with the work of his own brilliant
student Lodovico Ferrari. Ferrari, on seeing Tartaglia‘s cubic solution, had realized
that he could use a similar method to solve quartic equations.
In this work, Tartaglia, Cardano

and Ferrari between them demonstrated
the first uses of what are now known as
complex numbers, combinations of real
and imaginary numbers of the
type , where is the imaginary unit
√ . It fell to another Bologna resident,
Rafael Bombelli, to explain, at the end of
the 1560‘s, exactly what imaginary
numbers really were and how they could
be used.
Although both of the younger men

were acknowledged in the foreword of
Cardano‘s book, as well as in several
places within its body, Tartgalia engaged
Cardano in a decade-long fight over the
publication. Cardano argued that, when
he happened to see (some years after the 1535 competition) Scipione del Ferro‘s

64
unpublished independent cubic equation solution, which was dated before Tartaglia‘s,
he decided that his promise to Tartaglia could legitimately be broken, and he
included Tartaglia‘s solution in his next publication, along with Ferrari‘s quartic
solution.
Ferrari eventually came to understand cubic and quartic equations much

better than Tartaglia. When Ferrari challenged Tartaglia to another public debate,
Tartaglia initially accepted, but then decided not to show up, and Ferrari won by
default. Tartaglia was thoroughly discredited and became effectively unemployable.
Poor Tartaglia died penniless and unknown, despite having produced the first
translation of Euclid’s “Elements” in a modern European language, formulated
Tartaglia‘s Formula for the volume of a tetrahedron, devised a method to obtain
binomial coefficients called Tartaglia‘s Triangle (an earlier version of Pascal‗s
Triangle), and become the first to apply mathematics to the investigation of the paths
of cannonballs (work which was later validated by Galileo‘s studies on falling bodies).
Even today, the solution to cubic equations is usually known as Cardano’s Formula
and not Tartgalia‘s.
Ferrari, on the other hand, obtained a prestigious teaching post while still in
his teens after Cardano resigned from it and recommended him, and was eventually
able to retired young and quite rich, despite having started out as Cardano‘s servant.
Cardano himself, an accomplished gambler and chess player, wrote a book called
―Liber de ludo aleae‖ (―Book on Games of Chance―) when he was just 25 years old,
which contains perhaps the first systematic treatment of probability (as well as a
section on effective cheating methods). The ancient Greeks, Romans and Indians had
all been inveterate gamblers, but none of them had ever attempted to understand
randomness as being governed by mathematical laws.
The book described the – now obvious, but then revolutionary – insight that, if
a random event has several equally likely outcomes, the chance of any individual
outcome is equal to the proportion of that outcome to all possible outcomes. The
book was far ahead of its time, though, and it remained unpublished until 1663,
nearly a century after his death. It was the only serious work on probability
until Pascal‗s work in the 17th Century.
Cardano Circle
Cardano was also the first to describe hypocycloids, the pointed plane curves
generated by the trace of a fixed point on a small circle that rolls within a larger
circle, and the generating circles were later named Cardano (or Cardanic) circles.
The colourful Cardano remained notoriously short of money throughout his life,
largely due to his gambling habits, and was accused of heresy in 1570 after publishing
a horoscope of Jesus (apparently, his own son contributed to the prosecution, bribed
by Tartaglia).

65
Lesson 2
 The Birth of Calculus

It is almost universally agreed upon that the two characters we encounter in
this chapter, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) are the
discoverers creators of calculus. But what do we mean by this? We know that
derivatives were already known and so was their connection with tangents and with
the extremal values of functions. In addition, the areas under curves of varied
complexity had been computed by basically doing Riemann sums integration. Finally,
the connection between the two processes of integration and differentiation had been
foreseen, and Newton had been exposed to it from Barrow's lectures. One could say
that Newton and Leibniz did understand thoroughly the fundamental theorem of
calculus, and also both appreciated the power and range of the subject. Certainly,
Newton used Calculus-type thinking to push the
frontiers of mechanics and physics.
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
Like Fermat, Gottfried Leibniz, was not a

mathematician by trade. He was a diplomat who
traveled widely, and as such came to meet and
discuss mathematics with all the best-known
mathematicians and scientists of his time, including
Huygens and Newton. It is, in a sense, unfortunate
that Leibniz met and corresponded with Newton,
since he will, many years after the meeting, be
accused of plagiarizing his ideas on calculus from
Newton. A long, scandalous dispute followed, and
although his name was eventually cleared, the dispute left a bitter taste in the soul of
mathematicians on both sides of the English Channel. This led to a partial isolation of
English mathematicians from those in the Continent, where calculus, and its
consequent disciplines such as differential equations, will explode into a massive and
powerful discipline. Leibniz would die unbeknownst to the world and in relative
poverty.
Leibniz developed much of our modern notation for calculus such as and ∫
and it is this notation (as opposed to Newton's fluxion notation) that will be adopted
in the rest of Europe.
It is fortunate, however, that Leibniz met Huygens, since it is a question posed

to him by Huygens that possibly stimulated Leibniz's discovery of the connection
between integration and differentiation.

66
Huygens asked what the sum of the reciprocal of the triangular numbers added
to:
Recall Oresme. As it turned the answer was already known, but unknown to
Leibniz, he plunged ahead into the problem. He understood that from a given
sequence: , one could obtain two other ones, the difference and
the sum. The first one of these: the difference, ( ), is defined as follows,
( ) where: , etc. Thus, for
example, if is the sequence of triangular numbers, then ( ) is 2, 3,
4, 5, ….
The sum (or

series), ∑( ), is defined as
follows ∑( )
.
For example, if we start with
the simple sequence 1,1,1,…
and take consecutive sums of
it, we obtain the following configuration:
If we think of this as a matrix with the rows and columns labeled by 0, 1, 2,…,
then we see that we are dealing with Pascal's triangle since the ( ) entry is nothing
but (( ) ( ) (it is in this form that Pascal originally wrote his triangle).
In the context of sequences, the relation between the difference and the sum
is easily understood. If . Then
(∑( ))
which is almost (all we would need to recover is attach at the beginning. Also
∑( ( ))
and again is easily recoverable from this sequence, once is given.
Leibniz set out to a parallel construction to the triangle above. But instead of
consecutive sums he took consecutive differences, but since he was starting with a
decreasing sequence, we need to modify the difference to mean:
His first (row) sequence was the sequence of harmonic numbers: (

67
Then he easily observed that the second row consisted of the halves of the
reciprocals of the triangular numbers. Hence if we let and
( ) , then we know . So in similar
fashion to the discussion above, ∑( ( )) so the sum of all
reciprocals of the triangular numbers, which is
∑( ) ∑( ( ))
since 𝑛 .
This was very exciting to him, since he realized he could adequately add one
sequence by simply taking differences of another. Although certainly that reminds one
of the basic ideas behind the fundamental theorem of
calculus, it did not become real calculus until he pushed
it further, and this is what we look at next.
In the 1670's, Leibniz discovered a general

principle or technique to evaluate areas, which he
referred to as transmutation of areas, a technique
basically equivalent to the Fundamental Theorem of
Calculus, which we now give in some detail, and in,
more or less, modern notation and ideology. Suppose we
have an interval and we have a function 𝑦 (𝑥 )
defined on this interval. We are interested in the area
under the curve of this function.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
Born on Christmas Day, 1642, to a relatively poor widow, Isaac Newton showed
promise as a student, and thus a brother of his mother agreed to support him in
college. He attended Cambridge University. In 1665, during an outbreak of the
plague, he was sent home, and it was during that period that he developed some of
his best ideas. Soon after that, his teacher, Isaac Barrow resigned his position so that
Newton can be appointed to follow him. For the next 30 years Newton was a professor
at Cambridge – alas, a terrible lecturer, hardly anyone would attend his lectures, but
a widely known scholar. In 1693, he suffered a nervous breakdown, partially caused
by the stress suffered during the dispute with Leibniz. After he recovered, he was
appointed in charge of the Royal Mint where he spent the remainder of his life. When
he died, he was the most famous scientist in the world and was buried with all the
glory and ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
Sir Isaac Newton is one of the most distinguished names in the history of
mathematics and science. He can be considered one of the founders of modern
science, and his book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) (often
referred simply as the Principia) is a major book in Western civilization.

68
One of his first successes, and a definite step toward calculus, was his
extension of the binomial theorem to other exponents besides positive integers.
What started as a technique to improve the computation of squared roots, and other
roots, became a broader weapon, and made him a superb manipulator of series⎯,
which was critical to his whole view of calculus.
Very often, early in our mathematical career, perhaps as early as the first
course in calculus, we get exposed to a powerful procedure for finding roots of
equations called Newton’s Method. It is more effective than the other two methods
in the Descartes section ⎯ the bisection method and the method of false position. Its
ideal name would be the tangent method (in contrast to the secant method, a
variation of the method of false position) since it finds its new guess by following the
tangent line to the function at a guess.
The method is so useful it is programmed in most hand-held calculators.

Needless to say, the method just described has been polished through time, and we
now spend some time describing what Newton originally did. He used one of the
original ideas behind calculus. That idea is ignoring terms of higher order than 1, in
other words, ignoring everything except linear terms ⎯ actually, that is what
approximating a curve by the tangent line is all about. Newton was an expert at that
technique.
After Newton and Leibniz the development of the calculus was continued
by Jacob Bernoulli and Johann Bernoulli. However when Berkeley published
his Analyst in 1734 attacking the lack of rigor in the calculus and disputing the logic
on which it was based much effort was made to tighten the
reasoning. Maclaurin attempted to put the calculus on a rigorous geometrical basis
but the really satisfactory basis for the calculus had to wait for the work of Cauchy in
the 19th Century.

69
Lesson 3

Leonhard Euler (1707 – 1783)
Euler, Fermat and Descartes
The legacy of Leonhard Euler (pronounced

"oiler") is unsurpassed in the long history of
mathematics. In both quantity and quality, his
achievements are overwhelming. Euler's collected
works fill over 70 large volumes, a testament to the
genius of this unassuming Swiss citizen who changed
the face of mathematics so profoundly. Indeed, one's
first inclination, upon encountering the volume and
quality of his work, is to regard his story as an
exaggerated piece of fiction rather than hard
historical fact.
This remarkable individual was born in Basel,

Switzerland, in 1707. Not surprisingly, he showed
signs of genius as a youth. Euler's father, a Calvinist
preacher, managed to work out an arrangement
whereby young Leonhard would study with the renowned Johann Bernoulli. Euler later
recalled these sessions with the master. The boy would work throughout the week and
then, during an appointed hour on Saturday afternoons, would ask Bernoulli for help
on the mathematical topics that had eluded him. Bernoulli, not always the most kind-
hearted of men, may have initially shown some irritation at the shortcomings of his
pupil; Euler, for his part, resolved to work as diligently as possible so as not to bother
his mentor with unnecessary trifles.
Grumpy or not, Johann Bernoulli soon recognized the talent he was nurturing.
Soon Euler was publishing mathematical papers of high quality, and at age 19 he won
a prize from the French Academy for his brilliant analysis of the optimum placement
of masts on a ship. (It should be noted that, at this point in his life, Euler had never
even seen an ocean-going vessel!)
In 1727, Euler was appointed to the St. Petersburg Academy in Russia. At that
time, the Russian establishment was trying to implement Peter the Great's dream of
building an institution to rival the great academies of Paris and Berlin. Among the
scholars lured to Russia was Daniel Bernoulli, son of Johann, and it was through
Daniel's influence that Euler obtained his employment. Oddly, with the positions in
the natural sciences being filled, Euler's appointment was in the areas of medicine
and physiology. But a position was a position, so Euler readily accepted. After a shaky
start, including a peculiar stint as a medical officer in the Russian navy, Euler at last

70
landed a mathematical chair in 1 733 when Daniel Bernoulli, its previous occupant,
vacated it to return to Switzerland.
By then, Euler had already displayed the boundless energy and enormous
creativity that would characterize his mathematical life. Although Euler began losing
sight in his right eye during the mid- 1730s and soon was virtually sightless in that
eye, this physical impairment had no impact whatever on his scientific work. He
continued unimpeded, solving significant problems from such diverse mathematical
arenas as geometry, number theory, and combinatorics, as well as applied areas such
as mechanics, hydrodynamics, and optics. It is both poignant and somehow
remarkably uplifting to imagine a man slipping into blindness yet explaining to the
world the mysteries of optical light.
In 1741 , Euler left St. Petersburg to take a position in the Berlin Academy
under Frederick the Great. This move was based in part upon his distaste for the
repressive nature of the Czarist system. Unfortunately, the Berlin situation also
proved to be far from ideal. Frederick regarded Euler as too little the sophisticate,
too much the quiet, unassuming scholar. The German king, in an insensitive reference
to Euler's vision problems, called him a "Mathematical Cyclops." Such treatment,
along with the petty controversies and political in-fighting of the Academy, led Euler
back to St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine the Great, and he remained there
until his death 17 years later.
Euler was described by contemporaries as a kind and generous man, one who
enjoyed the simple pleasures of growing vegetables and telling stories to his brood of
13 children. In this regard, Euler presents a welcome contrast to the withdrawn,
secretive Isaac Newton, one of his very few mathematical peers. It is comforting to
know that genius of this order does not necessarily bring with it a neurotic
personality. Euler even retained his good nature when, in 1771 , he lost most of the
vision in his normal eye . Almost totally blind and in some pain, Euler nonetheless
continued his mathematical writings unabated, by dictating his wonderful equations
and formulas to an associate. Just as deafness proved no obstacle to Ludwig von
Beethoven a generation later, so blindness did not reduce the flow of mathematics
from Leonhard Euler.
Throughout his career, Euler was blessed with a memory that can only be
called phenomenal. His number-theoretic investigations were aided by the fact that
he had memorized not only the first 100 prime numbers but also all of their squares,
their cubes, and their fourth, fifth, and sixth powers. While others were digging
through tables or pulling out pencil and paper, Euler could simply recite from memory
such quantities as or . But this was the least of his achievements. He was
able to do difficult calculations mentally, some of these requiring him to retain in his
head up to 50 places of accuracy. The Frenchman Francois Arago said that Euler
calculated without apparent effort, "just as men breathe, as eagles sustain
themselves in the air." Yet this extraordinary mind still had room for a vast collection
of memorized facts, orations, and poems, including the entire text of Virgil's Aeneid,

71
which Euler had committed to memory as a boy and still could recite flawlessly half a
century later. No writer of fiction would dare to provide a character with a memory
of this calibre.
Part of Euler‘s well-deserved reputation rests upon the textbooks he authored.

While some of these were written at the highest level of mathematical sophistication,
he did not find it demeaning to write more elementary books as well. Perhaps his
best-known text was the Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum of 1748. This classic
mathematical exposition has been compared to Euclid's Elements in that it surveyed
the discoveries of earlier mathematicians, organized and cleaned up the proofs, and
did the job so well as to render most previous writings obsolete. To the Introductio he
added a volume on differential calculus in 1755 and three volumes on integral
calculus in 1768-74, thereby charting the general direction for mathematical analysis
down to the present day.
In all of his texts, Euler's exposition was quite lucid, and his mathematical
notation was chosen so as to clarify, not obscure, the underlying ideas. Indeed, Euler's
mathematical writings are the first that look truly modern to today's reader; this, of
course, is not because he chose a modern notation but because his influence was so
pervasive that all subsequent mathematicians adopted his style, notation, and
format. Moreover, he wrote with an understanding that not all his readers had his
awesome ability for learning mathematics. Euler was not the stereotypical
mathematician who sees deeply into the nature of his subject but finds it impossible
to convey his ideas to others. On the contrary, he cared deeply about teaching.
Condorcet, in a wonderful little phrase, said of Euler: "He preferred instructing his
pupils to the little satisfaction of amazing them." This is quite a compliment to a
person who, if he had so chosen, could surely have amazed anyone with his
mathematical prowess.
Any discussion of Euler's mathematics somehow returns to his Opera Omnia,

those 73 volumes of collected papers. These contain the 886 books and articles-
written variously in Latin, French, and German that he produced during his career. His
output was so huge and the pace of its production so rapid-even in the darkness of his
later life-that a publication backlog is reported to have lasted 47 years after his
death.
As noted, Euler did not confine his work to pure mathematics. Rather, his opus
contains papers on acoustics, engineering, mechanics, astronomy, and even a
three-volume treatise on optical devices such as telescopes and microscopes.
Incredible as it sounds, it has been estimated that, if one were to collect all
publications in the mathematical sciences produced over the last three-quarters of
the eighteenth century, roughly one-third of these were from the pen of Leonhard
Euler!
Standing in a library before his collected works, one surveys shelf upon shelf of
large volumes with a sense of disbelief. Contained in those thousands of pages are

72
seminal papers that charted new directions for whole areas of mathematics, from the
calculus of variations, to graph theory, to complex analysis, to differential equations.
Virtually every branch of mathematics has theorems of major Significance that are
attributed to Euler. Thus, we find the Euler triangle in geometry, the Euler
characteristic in topology, and the Euler circuit in graph theory, not to mention such
entities as the Euler constant, the Euler polynomials, the Euler integrals, and so on.
And even this is but half the story, for a large number of mathematical results
traditionally attributed to others was in fact discovered by Euler and appears neatly
tucked away amid the huge body of his work.
Mathematical notation created or popularized by Euler
Much of the notation used by

mathematicians today including
(𝑥) ∑ and the use of 𝑛𝑑 as
constants and 𝑥 𝑦 𝑛𝑑 𝑧 as unknowns – was
either created, popularized or standardized
by Euler. His efforts to standardize these
and other symbols (including and the
trigonometric functions) helped to
internationalize mathematics and to
encourage collaboration on problems.
He even managed to combine several

of these together in an amazing feat of
mathematical alchemy to produce one of
the most beautiful of all mathematical
equations, , sometimes known as Mathematical notation created or
Euler’s Identity. This equation combines popularized by Euler
arithmetic, calculus, trigonometry and
complex analysis into what has been called
―the most remarkable formula in mathematics‖, ―uncanny and sublime‖ and ―filled
with cosmic beauty‖, among other descriptions. Another such discovery, often known
simply as Euler’s Formula, is 𝑜 𝑥 𝑛𝑥. In fact, in a recent poll of
mathematicians, three of the top five most beautiful formulae of all time were
Euler‘s. He seemed to have an instinctive ability to demonstrate the deep
relationships between trigonometry, exponentials and complex numbers.
The discovery that initially sealed Euler‘s reputation was announced in 1735
and concerned the calculation of infinite sums. It was called the Basel problem after
the Bernoulli’s had tried and failed to solve it, and asked what was the precise sum
of the of the reciprocals of the squares of all the natural numbers to infinity i.e.
(a zeta function using a zeta constant of 2). Euler‘s friend Daniel
Bernoulli had estimated the sum to be about , but Euler‘s superior method yielded

73
the exact but rather unexpected result of . He also showed that the infinite series
was equivalent to an infinite product of prime numbers, an identity which would later
inspire Riemann‘s investigation of complex zeta functions.
The Seven Bridges of Königsberg Problem

Also in 1735, Euler solved an intransigent
mathematical and logical problem, known as the
Seven Bridges of Königsberg Problem, which had
perplexed scholars for many years, and in doing
so laid the foundations of graph theory and
presaged the important mathematical idea of
topology. The city of Königsberg in Prussia
(modern-day Kaliningrad in Russia) was set on
both sides of the Pregel River, and included two
large islands which were connected to each
other and the mainland by seven bridges. The
problem was to find a route through the city that
would cross each bridge once and only once. The Seven Bridges of Königsberg Problem
In fact, Euler proved that the problem has

no solution, but in doing so he made the important conceptual leap of pointing out
that the choice of route within each landmass is irrelevant and the only important
feature is the sequence of bridges crossed. This allowed him to reformulate the
problem in abstract terms, replacing each land mass with an abstract node and each
bridge with an abstract connection. This resulted in a mathematical structure called a
―graph‖, a pictorial representation made up of points (vertices) connected by non-
intersecting curves (arcs), which may be distorted in any way without changing the
graph itself.
In this way, Euler was able to deduce that, because the four land masses in the
original problem are touched by an odd number of bridges, the existence of a walk
traversing each bridge once only inevitably leads to a contradiction. If Königsberg had
had one fewer bridges, on the other hand, with an even number of bridges leading to
each piece of land, then a solution would have been possible.

74
List of theorems and methods pioneered by Euler
The list of theorems and methods

pioneered by Euler is immense, and largely
outside the scope of an entry-level study such
as this, but mention could be made of just
some of them:
 the demonstration of geometrical
properties such as Euler‘s Line and
Euler‘s Circle;
 the definition of the Euler
Characteristic χ (chi) for the surfaces
of polyhedra, whereby the number of
vertices minus the number of edges
plus the number of faces always equals The Euler Characteristic
2 (see table at right);
 a new method for solving quartic equations;
 the Prime Number Theorem, which describes the asymptotic distribution of the
prime numbers;
 proofs (and in some cases disproofs) of some of Fermat‘s theorems and
conjectures;
 the discovery of over 60 amicable numbers (pairs of numbers for which the sum
of the divisors of one number equals the other number), although some were
actually incorrect;
 a method of calculating integrals with complex limits (foreshadowing the
development of modern complex analysis);
 the calculus of variations, including its best-known result, the Euler-Lagrange
equation; a proof of the infinitude of primes, using the divergence of the
harmonic series;
 the integration of Leibniz‗s differential calculus with Newton‗s Method of
Fluxions into a form of calculus we would recognize today, as well as the
development of tools to make it easier to apply calculus to real physical
problems;
Leonhard Euler died suddenly on September 7, 1783. Up until the end, he had
been mathematically active, in spite of his blindness. Reportedly, he spent his last
day playing with his grandchildren and –discussing the latest theories about the planet
Uranus. For Euler, the end came quickly when, in Condorcet's phrase, “He ceased to
calculate and to live.‖ He is buried in St. Petersburg (now called Leningrad), which
had been his home, on and off, for so many happy year.

75
Pierre de Fermat (1601 – 1665)
The French mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) was possibly the most
productive mathematician of his era, making many contributions, some of which were
to calculus, number theory, and the law of refraction. We will survey those
contributions here, paying particular attention to his work in number theory.
The following account of Fermat's background is taken from Mahoney's book,

The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat. Pierre de Fermat was born on August
17, 1960, in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, a small town near Toulouse in the south part of
France, near the border with Spain. His father, Dominique Fermat, was a wealthy
leather merchant who held the position of "second consul" of Beaumont-de-Lomagne,
a governmental position similar to the position of mayor in our time. His mother,
Claire, née de Long, was the daughter of a prominent family. Fermat had a brother,
Clément, and two sisters, Louise and Marie.
While relatively little is known of Fermat's early education, it is known that he

was of Basque origin and received his primary and secondary education at the
monastery of Grandsl ve, run by the Cordeliers (Franciscans), in Beaumont-de-
Lomagne. For his advanced studies he first attended the University of Toulouse before
moving to Bordeaux in the second half of the 1620's. In Bordeaux (1629) Fermat began
his first serious mathematical researches, where he gave a copy of his restoration of
Appollonius's Plane Loci to one of the mathematicians there. In Bordeaux he
contacted Beaugrand and during this time he produced work on maxima and minima.
He gave his work to Etienne de'Espagnet, who shared mathematical interests with
Fermat.
From Bordeaux Fermat went to study at the University of Law at Orléans. On

May 1, 1631 he received the degree of Bachelor of Civil
Laws. Fermat's choice of a legal career was natural and
typical of his time, for his father's wealth and his mother's
famil y background. To be in this career was an avenue to
a higher social status and political power. After graduating
he purchased the office of councillor at the parliament in
Toulouse. Soon after that he acquired a wife. She was his
cousin fourth removed, Lo uise de Long. He gave a dowry
of 12,000 livres, which was not a problem for the young
lawyer. Soon after, he served in the local parliament and
became councillor, or legislator. His entire family, now
including his father-in-law, were members of the upper
class. Mahoney tells us how this affected his social status
as well.
"Fermat's offices made him a member of that social class also and entitled him
to add the "de" to his name, which he did from 1631 on." (Mahoney, p.16)

76
The "de" is the mark of nobility in France.
Very little is known about Fermat's private life. He had five children, Clément-
Samuel, Jean, Claire, Catherine, and Louise. Clément-Samuel was the oldest and
closest to Fermat. He may have shared many mathematical interests with Fermat.
Clément-Samuel eventually inherited his father's office of councillor.
For the remainder of his life Fermat lived in Toulouse, but he also worked in his
hometown of Beaumont-de-Lomagne, and the nearby town of Castres. First he worked
in the lower chamber of Parliament, but then in 1638 he was appointed to the higher
chamber, and finally in 1652 he was promoted to the highest level in the criminal
court. This position was usually given to people of seniority, but since the plague had
struck in the early 1650's, many of the older men had died. Fermat himself was struck
down w ith the plague. In 1653 his death was wrongly reported; Fermat had survived.
This account of Fermat's background and life was taken from [Mahoney, pp. 15-17].
Fermat’s mathematical work was communicated mainly in letters to friends,

often with little or no proof of his theorems. Although he himself claimed to have
proved all his arithmetic theorems, few records of his proofs have survived, and many
mathematicians have doubted some of his claims, especially given the difficulty of
some of the problems and the limited mathematical tools available to Fermat.
The Two Square Theorem
One example of his many theorems is

the Two Square Theorem, which shows that
any prime number which, when divided by 4,
leaves a remainder of 1 (i.e. can be written in
the form 4n + 1), can always be re-written as
the sum of two square numbers (see image at
right for examples).
His so-called Little Theorem is often

used in the testing of large prime numbers,
and is the basis of the codes which protect our
credit cards in Internet transactions today. In
Fermat‘s Theorem on Sums of Two Squares simple (sic) terms, it says that if we have two
numbers a and p, where p is a prime number
and not a factor of a, then a multiplied by
itself p-1 times and then divided by p, will always leave a remainder of 1. In
mathematical terms, this is written: ( ) (𝑚𝑜𝑑 𝑝). For example, if a = 7 and p =
2
3, then 7 ÷ 3 should leave a remainder of 1, and 49 ÷ 3 does in fact leave a
remainder of 1.
Fermat numbers

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Fermat identified a subset of numbers, now known as Fermat numbers, which

are of the form of one less than 2 to the power of a power of 2, or, written
mathematically, . The first five such numbers are:
Interestingly, these are all prime numbers (and are known as Fermat primes),
but all the higher Fermat numbers which have been painstakingly identified over the
years are NOT prime numbers, which just goes to show the value of inductive proof in
mathematics.
Analyses of Curves
Fermat‘s study of curves and equations prompted him to generalize the

equation for the ordinary parabola 𝑦 𝑥 , and that for the
rectangular hyperbola 𝑥𝑦 , to the form 𝑦 𝑥 . The curves determined by
this equation are known as the parabolas or hyperbolas of Fermat according as n is
positive or negative. He similarly generalized the Archimedean spiral .
These curves in turn directed him in the middle 1630s to an algorithm, or rule of
mathematical procedure, that was equivalent to differentiation. This procedure
enabled him to find equations of tangents to curves and to locate maximum,
minimum, and inflection points of polynomial curves, which are graphs of linear
combinations of powers of the independent variable. During the same years, he found
formulas for areas bounded by these curves through a summation process that is
equivalent to the formula now used for the same purpose in the integral calculus.
Such a formula is:
∫ 𝑥 𝑑𝑥
𝑛
It is not known whether or not Fermat noticed that differentiation of 𝑥 ,

leading to 𝑛 , is the inverse of integrating 𝑥 . Through ingenious transformations
he handled problems involving more general algebraic curves, and he applied his
analysis of infinitesimal quantities to a variety of other problems, including the
calculation of centres of gravity and finding the lengths of curves. Descartes in
the Géométrie had reiterated the widely held view, stemming from Aristotle, that the
precise rectification or determination of the length of algebraic curves was
impossible; but Fermat was one of several mathematicians who, in the years 1657–59,

78
disproved the dogma. In a paper entitled ―De Linearum Curvarum cum Lineis Rectis
Comparatione‖ (―Concerning the Comparison of Curved Lines with Straight Lines‖), he
showed that the semicubical parabola and certain other algebraic curves were strictly
rectifiable. He also solved the related problem of finding the surface area of a
segment of a paraboloid of revolution. This paper appeared in a supplement to
the Veterum Geometria Promota, issued by the mathematician Antoine de La Loubère
in 1660. It was Fermat‘s only mathematical work published in his lifetime.
Disagreement with Other Cartesian Views
Fermat differed also with Cartesian views concerning the law of refraction (the
sines of the angles of incidence and refraction of light passing through media of
different densities are in a constant ratio), published by Descartes in 1637 in La
Dioptrique; like La Géométrie, it was an appendix to his celebrated Discours de la
méthode. Descartes had sought to justify the sine law through a premise that light
travels more rapidly in the denser of the two media involved in the refraction.
Twenty years later Fermat noted that this appeared to be in conflict with the view
espoused by Aristotelians that nature always chooses the shortest path. Applying his
method of maxima and minima and making the assumption that light travels less
rapidly in the denser medium, Fermat showed that the law of refraction is consonant
with his ―principle of least time.‖ His argument concerning the speed of light was
found later to be in agreement with the wave theory of the 17th-century Dutch
scientist Christiaan Huygens, and in 1849 it was verified experimentally by A.-H.-L.
Fizeau.
Through the mathematician and theologian Marin Mersenne, who, as a friend of

Descartes, often acted as an intermediary with other scholars, Fermat in 1638
maintained a controversy with Descartes on the validity of their respective methods
for tangents to curves. Fermat‘s views were fully justified some 30 years later in the
calculus of Sir Isaac Newton. Recognition of the significance of Fermat‘s work in
analysis was tardy, in part because he adhered to the system of mathematical symbols
devised by François Viète, notations that Descartes‘s Géométrie had rendered largely
obsolete. The handicap imposed by the awkward notations operated less severely in
Fermat‘s favourite field of study, the theory of numbers; but here, unfortunately, he
found no correspondent to share his enthusiasm. In 1654 he had enjoyed an exchange
of letters with his fellow mathematician Blaise Pascal on problems
in probability concerning games of chance, the results of which were extended and
published by Huygens in his De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae (1657).

79
Last Theorem
Fermat‘s pièce de résistance,

though, was his famous Last Theorem, a
conjecture left unproven at his death, and
which puzzled mathematicians for over 350
years. The theorem, originally described in
a scribbled note in the margin of his copy
of Diophantus‗ ―Arithmetica‖, states that
no three positive integers a, b and c can
satisfy the equation for any
integer value of n greater than two (i.e.
squared). This seemingly simple conjecture
has proved to be one of the world‘s hardest
mathematical problems to prove.
There are clearly many solutions – Fermat’s Last Theorem

indeed, an infinite number – when n = 2
(namely, all the Pythagorean triples), but
no solution could be found for cubes or higher powers. Tantalizingly, Fermat himself
claimed to have a proof, but wrote that ―this margin is too small to contain it‖. As
far as we know from the papers which have come down to us, however, Fermat only
managed to partially prove the theorem for the special case of n = 4, as did several
other mathematicians who applied themselves to it (and indeed as had earlier
mathematicians dating back to Fibonacci, albeit not with the same intent).
Over the centuries, several mathematical and scientific academies offered
substantial prizes for a proof of the theorem, and to some extent it single-handedly
stimulated the development of algebraic number theory in the 19th and 20th
Centuries. It was finally proved for ALL numbers only in 1995 (a proof usually
attributed to British mathematician Andrew Wiles, although in reality it was a joint
effort of several steps involving many mathematicians over several years). The final
proof made use of complex modern mathematics, such as the modularity theorem for
semi-stable elliptic curves, Galois representations and Ribet‘s epsilon theorem, all of
which were unavailable in Fermat‘s time, so it seems clear that Fermat‘s claim to
have solved his last theorem was almost certainly an exaggeration (or at least a
misunderstanding).
In addition to his work in number theory, Fermat anticipated the

development of calculus to some extent, and his work in this field was invaluable
later to Newton and Leibniz. While investigating a technique for finding the centres
of gravity of various plane and solid figures, he developed a method for determining
maxima, minima and tangents to various curves that was essentially equivalent to
differentiation. Also, using an ingenious trick, he was able to reduce the integral of
general power functions to the sums of geometric series.

80
Fermat‘s correspondence with his friend Pascal also helped mathematicians

grasp a very important concept in basic probability which, although perhaps intuitive
to us now, was revolutionary in 1654, namely the idea of equally probable outcomes
and expected values.
In conclusion, Pierre de Fermat has been called the greatest French

mathematician of the seventeenth century. We have seen his contributions to
calculus, the law of refraction, and most importantly to number theory. Fermat died
on January 1 2, 1665 in Castres, France. Unfortunately Fermat's influence was not
very great, because he was reluctant to publish his work. However, he is still
remembered as a very great mathematician.
René Descartes (1596 – 1650)
René Descartes has been dubbed the ―Father of Modern Philosophy―, but he
was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century, and
is sometimes considered the first of the modern school of mathematics.
As a young man, he found employment for a time as a soldier (essentially as a

mercenary in the pay of various forces, both Catholic and Protestant). But, after a
series of dreams or visions, and after meeting the Dutch philosopher and scientist
Isaac Beeckman, who sparked his interest in mathematics and the New Physics, he
concluded that his real path in life was the pursuit of true wisdom and science.
Early Life
Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, in La Haye en Touraine, a small town in
central France, which has since been renamed after him to honor its most famous
son. He was the youngest of three children, and his mother, Jeanne Brochard, died
within his first year of life. His father, Joachim, a council member in the provincial
parliament, sent the children to live with their
maternal grandmother, where they remained
even after he remarried a few years later. But
he was very concerned with good education
and sent René, at age 8, to boarding school at
the Jesuit college of Henri IV in La Flèche,
several miles to the north, for seven years.
Descartes was a good student, although

it is thought that he might have been sickly,
since he didn‘t have to abide by the school‘s
rigorous schedule and was instead allowed to
rest in bed until midmorning. The subjects he
studied, such as rhetoric and logic and the
―mathematical arts,‖ which included music and
astronomy, as well as metaphysics, natural

81
philosophy and ethics, equipped him well for his future as a philosopher. So did
spending the next four years earning a baccalaureate in law at the University of
Poitiers. Some scholars speculate that he may have had a nervous breakdown during
this time.
Descartes later added theology and medicine to his studies. But he eschewed
all this, ―resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in
myself or else in the great book of the world,‖ he wrote much later in Discourse on
the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences,
published in 1637.
So he travelled, joined the army for a brief time, saw some battles and was
introduced to Dutch scientist and philosopher Isaac Beeckman, who would become for
Descartes a very influential teacher. A year after graduating from Poitiers, Descartes
credited a series of three very powerful dreams or visions with determining the course
of his study for the rest of his life.
Becoming the Father of Modern Philosophy
Descartes is considered by many to be the father of modern philosophy,

because his ideas departed widely from current understanding in the early 17th
century, which was more feeling-based. While elements of his philosophy weren‘t
completely new, his approach to them was. Descartes believed in basically clearing
everything off the table, all preconceived and inherited notions, and starting fresh,
putting back one by one the things that were certain, which for him began with the
statement ―I exist.‖ From this sprang his most famous quote: ―I think; therefore I
am.‖
Since Descartes believed that all truths were ultimately linked, he sought to
uncover the meaning of the natural world with a rational approach, through science
and mathematics—in some ways an extension of the approach Sir Francis Bacon had
asserted in England a few decades prior. In addition to Discourse on the Method,
Descartes also published Meditations on First Philosophy and Principles of Philosophy,
among other treatises.
Although philosophy is largely where the 20th century deposited Descartes—

each century has focused on different aspects of his work—his investigations in
theoretical physics led many scholars to consider him a mathematician first. He
introduced Cartesian geometry, which incorporates algebra; through his laws of
refraction, he developed an empirical understanding of rainbows; and he proposed a
naturalistic account of the formation of the solar system, although he felt he had to
suppress much of that due to Galileo‘s fate at the hands of the Inquisition. His
concern wasn‘t misplaced—Pope Alexander VII later added Descartes‘ works to the
Index of Prohibited Books.

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Cartesian Coordinate System
It was in ―La Géométrie‖ that Descartes first proposed that each point in two
dimensions can be described by two numbers on a plane, one giving the point‘s
horizontal location and the other the vertical location, which have come to be known
as Cartesian coordinates. He used perpendicular lines (or axes), crossing at a point
called the origin, to measure the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) locations, both
positive and negative, thus effectively dividing the plane up into four quadrants.
Any equation can be represented on the plane by plotting on it the solution set
of the equation. For example, the simple equation 𝑦 𝑥 yields a straight line linking
together the points ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ), etc. The equation 𝑦 𝑥 yields a straight
line linking together the points ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) etc. More complex equations
involving 𝑥 , 𝑥 , etc, plot various types
of curves on the plane.
As a point moves along a curve,
then, its coordinates change, but an
equation can be written to describe the
change in the value of the coordinates
at any point in the figure. Using this
novel approach, it soon became clear
that an equation like 𝑥 𝑦 , for
example, describes a circle; 𝑦 – 𝑥 a
curve called a parabola;
an ellipse; a hyperbola.
Descartes‘ ground-breaking
Cartesian Coordinates
work, usually referred to as analytic
geometry or Cartesian geometry, had
the effect of allowing the conversion of geometry into algebra (and vice versa). Thus,
a pair of simultaneous equations could now be solved either algebraically or
graphically (at the intersection of two lines). It allowed the development of Newton‘s
and Leibniz‘s subsequent discoveries of calculus. It also unlocked the possibility of
navigating geometries of higher dimensions, impossible to physically visualize – a
concept which was to become central to modern technology and physics – thus
transforming mathematics forever.

83
Rule of Signs
Although analytic geometry was

far and away Descartes‘ most
important contribution to
mathematics, he also: developed a
―rule of signs‖ technique for
determining the number of positive or
negative real roots of a polynomial;
―invented‖ (or at least popularized)
the superscript notation for showing
powers or exponents (e.g. 24 to show
2 x 2 x 2 x 2); and re-discovered
Thabit ibn Qurra‘s general formula for
amicable numbers, as well as the
amicable pair 9,363,584 and 9,437,056
(which had also been discovered by
another Islamic mathematician,
Yazdi, almost a century earlier).
Descartes‘ Rule of Signs
For all his importance in the
development of modern mathematics, though, Descartes is perhaps best known today
as a philosopher who espoused rationalism and dualism. His philosophy consisted of a
method of doubting everything, then rebuilding knowledge from the ground, and he is
particularly known for the often-quoted statement ―Cogito ergo sum‖(―I think,
therefore I am‖).
He also had an influential rôle in the development of modern physics, a rôle

which has been, until quite recently, generally under-appreciated and under-
investigated. He provided the first distinctly modern formulation of laws of nature
and a conservation principle of motion, made numerous advances in optics and the
study of the reflection and refraction of light, and constructed what would become
the most popular theory of planetary motion of the late 17th Century. His
commitment to the scientific method was met with strident opposition by the church
officials of the day.
His revolutionary ideas made him a centre of controversy in his day, and he
died in 1650 far from home in Stockholm, Sweden. 13 years later, his works were
placed on the Catholic Church‘s ―Index of Prohibited Books‖.
Final Years and Heritage
In 1644, 1647, and 1648, after 16 years in the Netherlands, Descartes returned
to France for brief visits on financial business and to oversee the translation into
French of the Principles, the Meditations, and the Objections and Replies. (The

84
translators were, respectively, Picot, Charles d‘Albert, duke de Luynes, and Claude
Clerselier.) In 1647 he also met with Gassendi and Hobbes, and he suggested
to Pascal the famous experiment of taking a barometer up Mount Puy-de-Dôme to
determine the influence of the weight of the air. Picot returned with Descartes to the
Netherlands for the winter of 1647–48. During Descartes‘s final stay in Paris in 1648,
the French nobility revolted against the crown in a series of wars known as the
Fronde. Descartes left precipitously on August 17, 1648, only days before the death of
his old friend Mersenne.
Clerselier‘s brother-in-law, Hector Pierre Chanut, who was French resident

in Sweden and later ambassador, helped to procure a pension for Descartes from Louis
XIV, though it was never paid. Later, Chanut engineered an invitation for Descartes to
the court of Queen Christina, who by the close of the Thirty Years‘ War (1618–48) had
become one of the most important and powerful monarchs in Europe. Descartes went
reluctantly, arriving early in October 1649. He may have gone because he needed
patronage; the Fronde seemed to have destroyed his chances in Paris, and the
Calvinist theologians were harassing him in the Netherlands.
In Sweden—where, Descartes said, in winter men‘s thoughts freeze like the

water—the 22-year-old Christina perversely made the 53-year-old Descartes rise
before 5:00 AM to give her philosophy lessons, even though she knew of his habit of
lying in bed until 11 o‘clock in the morning. She also is said to have ordered him to
write the verses of a ballet, The Birth of Peace (1649), to celebrate her role in
the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years‘ War. The verses in fact were
not written by Descartes, though he did write the statutes for a Swedish Academy of
Arts and Sciences. While delivering these statutes to the queen at 5:00 AM on
February 1, 1650, he caught a chill, and he soon developed pneumonia. He died
in Stockholm on February 11. Many pious last words have been attributed to him, but
the most trustworthy report is that of his German valet, who said that Descartes was
in a coma and died without saying anything at all.
Descartes‘s papers came into the possession of Claude Clerselier, a pious

Catholic, who began the process of turning Descartes into a saint by cutting, adding
to, and selectively publishing his letters. This cosmetic work culminated in 1691 in the
massive biography by Father Adrien Baillet, who was at work on a 17-volume Lives of
the Saints. Even during Descartes‘s lifetime there were questions about whether he
was a Catholic apologist, primarily concerned with supporting Christian doctrine, or
an atheist, concerned only with protecting himself with pious sentiments while
establishing a deterministic, mechanistic, and materialistic physics.
These questions remain difficult to answer, not least because all the papers,
letters, and manuscripts available to Clerselier and Baillet are now lost. In 1667
the Roman Catholic Church made its own decision by putting Descartes‘s works on
the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Latin: ―Index of Prohibited Books‖) on the very day
his bones were ceremoniously placed in Sainte-Geneviève-du-Mont in Paris. During his
lifetime, Protestant ministers in the Netherlands called Descartes a Jesuit and a

85
papist—which is to say an atheist. He retorted that they were intolerant,

ignorant bigots. Up to about 1930, a majority of scholars, many of whom were
religious, believed that Descartes‘s major concerns were metaphysical and religious.
By the late 20th century, however, numerous commentators had come to believe that
Descartes was a Catholic in the same way he was a Frenchman and a royalist—that is,
by birth and by convention.
Descartes himself said that good sense is destroyed when one thinks too much
of God. He once told a German protégée, Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–78), who
was known as a painter and a poet, that she was wasting her intellect studying
Hebrew and theology. He also was perfectly aware of—though he tried to conceal—the
atheistic potential of his materialist physics and physiology. Descartes seemed
indifferent to the emotional depths of religion. Whereas Pascal trembled when he
looked into the infinite universe and perceived the puniness and misery of man,
Descartes exulted in the power of human reason to understand the cosmos and to
promote happiness, and he rejected the view that human beings are essentially
miserable and sinful. He held that it is impertinent to pray to God to change things.
Instead, when we cannot change the world, we must change ourselves.
 MODULE SUMMARY
In module II, you have learned about the development of mathematics on medieval
period. You have learned the development of numbers, importance and kinds. You
have also learned the different mathematicians, symbols, representations and
computations.
There are three lessons in module I. Lesson 1 focused on the development of medieval
period and the renaissance.
Lesson 2 deals with the birth of calculus and Newton and Leibniz.
Lesson 3 discusses the discoveries and contributions of mathematicians: Euler,

Fermat and Descartes
Congratulations! You have just studied Module II. now you are ready to evaluate how
Luck!!!

86
 SUMMATIVE TEST
Solve for the following and show your complete solution.
1. Can you identify how the Fibonacci numbers are used in Pascal‘s Triangle?
2. Complete the following magic squares

a. Using only the digits 1 to 16 complete the magic
square s0 that the sum of each row, column or
diagonal is 34.
b. Using only the digits 1 to 9 complete the magic square.

All columns, rows and diagonals must sum to 15
3. Take 5 photos of the nature that represents Golden Ratio and describe each.

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Activity
D F A G O T T F R I E D L E I B N I Z V
C E R J K S E A S A A S S R T E E E E E
F I B O N A C C I D D F E A S D W X T C
G H W R I I S D F A A D C C D S T D S A
E D D J D S D S A A E R A D C V O U I L
F S E A D A B L U E M A N R E D N T Y C
G E T C H A D C S A A F T G G E S D F U
E T A O F C A E S R C A T S E D M A A L
E R A B I N O M I A L T H E O R E M R U
T A A E E E G L R J A R E C S R T R S S
R C S R S W O O E E U S O H A E H E A F
S S E N A T G V P S R E R R V I O D V R
E E F O G O N E O U I E E I I G D E I T
D D D U T N I D H S N D M S O N F E O A
E E D L E T B U F E R M A T U S O M U R
S E I L L U O N R E B N N A H O J E R T
E E F I D H U Y G E N S G R E E N R D S
S A E R A F O N O I T A T U M S N A R T
Find the names/words/phrases defined on the following statements:
4. A branch of mathematics concerned with the calculation of instantaneous rates

of change and the summation of infinitely many small factors to determine
some whole
5. He developed much of our modern notation for calculus
6. He is considered one of the founders of modern science
7. After Newton and Leibniz, they continued the development of the Calculus
8. A powerful procedure for finding roots of equations
9. One of Isaac Newton‘s first successes, and a definite step toward calculus, was
his extension of it
10. He attempted to put the calculus on a rigorous geometrical basis
11. In the 1670's, Leibniz discovered this general principle or technique to evaluate
areas
12. Find F7 of the Fermat number and its factors

13. Use Descartes' Rule of Signs to find the number of real roots of:
A. (𝒙) 𝒙𝟓 𝟒𝒙𝟒 – 𝟑𝒙𝟐 𝒙– 𝟔
B. (𝑥 ) 𝑥 𝑥 𝑥 𝑥 𝑥

88
14. Choose one of the discussed Mathematicians and create an Infographics about
their life and contributions in Mathematics.
Rubric: Infographics Making
CATEGORY 4 3 2 1
Graphics - Graphics are all Most graphics Most graphics Many graphics
Clarity in focus and are in focus are in focus are not clear
the content and the and the or are too
easily viewed content easily content is small.
and identified viewed and easily viewed
from 6 ft. identified from and identified
away. 6 ft. away. from 4 ft.
away.
Labels All items of Almost all Several items Labels are too
importance on items of of importance small to view
the importance on on the OR no
infographics the infographicsr important
are clearly infographics are clearly items were
labeled with are clearly labeled with labeled.
labels that can labeled with labels that can
be read from at labels that can be read from
least 3 ft. be read from at least 3 ft.
away. at least 3 ft. away.
away.
Required The All required All but 1 of the Several
Elements infographics elements are required required
includes all included on elements is elements were
required the included on missing.
elements as infographics. the
well as infographics.
additional
information.
Content - At least 7 5-6 accurate 3-4 accurate Less than 3
Accuracy accurate facts facts are facts are accurate facts
are displayed displayed on displayed on are displayed
on the the the on the
infographics. infographics. infographics. infographics.
Attractiveness The The The The
infographics is infographics is infographics is infographics is
exceptionally attractive in acceptably distractingly
attractive in terms of attractive messy or very
terms of design, layout though it may poorly
design, layout, and neatness. be a bit messy. designed. It is
and neatness. not attractive.

MODULE III
The Development of mathematics: a

historical overview: Modern Period
LESSON 1 - Non-Euclidean Geometries
LESSON 2 - Modern algebra and

Number theory
LESSON 3 - Birth of set theory

90
MODULE III
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATHEMATICS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW:

MODERN PERIOD
 INTRODUCTION

learn the development of number system in modern period. You will learn the non-
Euclidean geometry, modern algebra, number theory, and birth of set theory.
OBJECTIVES
4. Discuss the origin of non-Euclidean geometries

5. Identify the personalities associated with non-Euclidean geometries
6. Present a timeline of these geometries from the time of their conception
7. Examine the origins of modern algebra and number theory and set theory
8. Identify the personalities associated with these branches of mathematics
9. Discuss the problems in the foundations of mathematics
SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module III-

91
Lesson 1
 Non-Euclidean Geometries
Non-Euclidean geometry, literally any geometry that is not the same

as Euclidean geometry. Although the term is frequently used to refer only
to hyperbolic geometry, common usage includes those few geometries (hyperbolic
and spherical) that differ from but are very close to Euclidean geometry.
The non-Euclidean geometries developed along two different historical threads.

The first thread started with the search to understand the movement of stars and
planets in the apparently hemispherical sky. For
example, Euclid (flourished c. 300 BC) wrote about spherical geometry in his
astronomical work Phaenomena. In addition to looking to the heavens, the ancients
attempted to understand the shape of the Earth and to use this understanding to
solve problems in navigation over long distances (and later for large-scale surveying).
These activities are aspects of spherical geometry.
The second thread started with the fifth (―parallel‖) postulate in

Euclid‘s Elements:
If a straight line falling on two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same
side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, will meet on
that side on which the angles are less than the two right angles .
For 2,000 years following Euclid, mathematicians attempted either to prove

the postulate as a theorem (based on the other postulates) or to modify it in various
ways..) These attempts culminated when the Russian Nikolay Lobachevsky (1829) and
the Hungarian János Bolyai (1831) independently published a description of a
geometry that, except for the parallel postulate, satisfied all of Euclid‘s postulates
and common notions. It is this geometry that is called hyperbolic geometry.
Spherical Geometry
From early times, people noticed that the shortest distance between two
points on Earth were great circle routes. For example, the Greek
astronomer Ptolemy wrote in Geography (c. AD 150):
It has been demonstrated by mathematics that the surface of the land and water is in
its entirety a sphere…and that any plane which passes through the centre makes at its
surface, that is, at the surface of the Earth and of the sky, great circles.
Great circles are the ―straight lines‖ of spherical geometry. This is a

consequence of the properties of a sphere, in which the shortest distances on the
surface are great circle routes. Such curves are said to be ―intrinsically‖ straight.

92
(Note, however, that intrinsically straight and shortest are not necessarily identical,
as shown in the figure.) Three intersecting great circle arcs form a spherical triangle
(see figure); while a spherical triangle must be distorted to fit on another sphere with
a different radius, the difference is only one of scale. In differential geometry,
spherical geometry is described as the geometry of a surface with constant
positive curvature.
The shaded elevation and the surrounding plane form one continuous surface.
Therefore, the red path from A to B that rises over the elevation is intrinsically straight (as
viewed from within the surface). However, it is longer than the intrinsically bent green path,
demonstrating that an intrinsically straight line is not necessarily the shortest distance
between two points.
There are many ways of projecting a portion of a sphere, such as the surface of
the Earth, onto a plane. These are known as maps or charts and they must necessarily
distort distances and either area or angles. Cartographers‘ need for various qualities
in map projections gave an early impetus to the study of spherical geometry.
Elliptic geometry is the term used to indicate an axiomatic formalization of

spherical geometry in which each pair of antipodal points is treated as a single point.
An intrinsic analytic view of spherical geometry was developed in the 19th century by
the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann; usually called the Riemann sphere
(see figure), it is studied in university courses on complex analysis. Some texts call
this (and therefore spherical geometry) Riemannian geometry, but this term more
correctly applies to a part of differential geometry that gives a way of intrinsically
describing any surface.

93
Hyperbolic Geometry
The first description of hyperbolic geometry was given in the context of

Euclid‘s postulates, and it was soon proved that all hyperbolic geometries differ only
in scale (in the same sense that spheres only differ in size). In the mid-19th century it
was shown that hyperbolic surfaces must have constant negative curvature. However,
this still left open the question of whether any surface with hyperbolic geometry
actually exists.
In 1868 the Italian mathematician Eugenio Beltrami described a surface, called

the pseudosphere, that has constant negative curvature. However, the pseudosphere
is not a complete model for hyperbolic geometry, because intrinsically straight lines
on the pseudosphere may intersect themselves and cannot be continued past the
bounding circle (neither of which is true in hyperbolic geometry). In 1901 the German
mathematician David Hilbert proved that it is impossible to define a complete
hyperbolic surface using real analytic functions (essentially, functions that can be
expressed in terms of ordinary formulas). In those days, a surface always meant one
defined by real analytic functions, and so the search was abandoned. However, in
1955 the Dutch mathematician Nicolaas Kuiper proved the existence of a complete
hyperbolic surface, and in the 1970s the American mathematician William Thurston
described the construction of a hyperbolic surface. Such a surface, as shown in
the figure, can also be crocheted.

94
Hyperbolic plane, designed and crocheted by Daina Taimina.Courtesy of Daina Taimina,

Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
In the 19th century, mathematicians developed three models of hyperbolic

geometry that can now be interpreted as projections (or maps) of the hyperbolic
surface. Although these models all suffer from some distortion—similar to the way
that flat maps distort the spherical Earth—they are useful individually and in
combination as aides to understand hyperbolic geometry. In 1869–71 Beltrami and the
German mathematician Felix Klein developed the first complete model of hyperbolic
geometry (and first called the geometry ―hyperbolic‖). In the Klein-Beltrami
model (shown in the figure, top left), the hyperbolic surface is mapped to the interior
of a circle, with geodesics in the hyperbolic surface corresponding to chords in the
circle. Thus, the Klein-Beltrami model preserves ―straightness‖ but at the cost of
distorting angles. About 1880 the French mathematician Henri Poincaré developed
two more models. In the Poincaré disk model (see figure, top right), the hyperbolic
surface is mapped to the interior of a circular disk, with hyperbolic geodesics mapping
to circular arcs (or diameters) in the disk that meet the bounding circle at right
angles. In the Poincaré upper half-plane model (see figure, bottom), the hyperbolic
surface is mapped onto the half-plane above the x-axis, with hyperbolic geodesics
mapped to semicircles (or vertical rays) that meet the x-axis at right angles. Both
Poincaré models distort distances while preserving angles as measured by tangent
lines.

95
In the Klein-Beltrami model for the hyperbolic plane, the shortest paths, or geodesics, are
chords (several examples, labeled k, l, m, n, are shown). In the Poincaré disk model,
geodesics are portions of circles that intersect the boundary of the disk at right angles; and in
the Poincaré upper half-plane model, geodesics are semicircles with their centers on the
boundary.

96
Lesson 2
 Modern algebra and number theory
Modern algebra, also called abstract algebra, branch of mathematics concerned

with the general algebraic structure of various sets (such as real numbers, complex
numbers, matrices, and vector spaces), rather than rules and procedures for
manipulating their individual elements. During the second half of the 19th century,
various important mathematical advances led to the study of sets in which any two
elements can be added or multiplied together to give a third element of the same set.
The elements of the sets concerned could be numbers, functions, or some other
objects. As the techniques involved were similar, it seemed reasonable to consider
the sets, rather than their elements, to be the objects of primary concern. A
definitive treatise, Modern Algebra, was written in 1930 by the Dutch
mathematician Bartel van der Waerden, and the subject has had a deep effect on
almost every branch of mathematics.
Basic Algebraic Structures
Fields
In itself a set is not very useful, being little more than a well-defined collection
of mathematical objects. However, when a set has one or more operations (such as
addition and multiplication) defined for its elements, it becomes very useful. If the
operations satisfy familiar arithmetic rules (such as associativity, commutativity, and
distributivity) the set will have a particularly ―rich‖ algebraic structure. Sets with the
richest algebraic structure are known as fields. Familiar examples of fields are the
rational numbers (fractions a/b where a and b are positive or negative whole
numbers), the real numbers (rational and irrational numbers), and the complex
numbers (numbers of the form a + bi where a and b are real numbers and i2 = −1).
Each of these is important enough to warrant its own special symbol: ℚ for the
rationals, ℝ for the reals, and ℂ for the complex numbers. The term field in its
algebraic sense is quite different from its use in other contexts, such as vector fields
in mathematics or magnetic fields in physics. Other languages avoid this conflict in
terminology; for example, a field in the algebraic sense is called a corps in French and
a Körper in German, both words meaning ―body.‖
In addition to the fields mentioned above, which all have infinitely many
elements, there exist fields having only a finite number of elements (always some
power of a prime number), and these are of great importance, particularly for
discrete mathematics. In fact, finite fields motivated the early development of
abstract algebra. The simplest finite field has only two elements, 0 and 1, where 1 + 1
= 0. This field has applications to coding theory and data communication.

97
Structural axioms
The basic rules, or axioms, for addition and multiplication are shown in
the table, and a set that satisfies all 10 of these rules is called a field. A set satisfying
only axioms 1–7 is called a ring, and if it also satisfies axiom 9 it is called a ring with
unity. A ring satisfying the commutative law of multiplication (axiom 8) is known as
a commutative ring. When axioms 1–9 hold and there are no proper divisors of zero
(i.e., whenever ab = 0 either a = 0 or b = 0), a set is called an integral domain. For
example, the set of integers {…, −2, −1, 0, 1, 2, …} is a commutative ring with unity,
but it is not a field, because axiom 10 fails. When only axiom 8 fails, a set is known as
a division ring or skew field.
Number theory, branch of mathematics concerned with properties of the

positive integers (1, 2, 3, …). Sometimes called ―higher arithmetic,‖ it is among the
oldest and most natural of mathematical pursuits.
Number theory has always fascinated amateurs as well as professional

mathematicians. In contrast to other branches of mathematics, many of the problems
and theorems of number theory can be understood by laypersons, although solutions
to the problems and proofs of the theorems often require a sophisticated
mathematical background.
Until the mid-20th century, number theory was considered the purest branch of
mathematics, with no direct applications to the real world. The advent of
digital computers and digital communications revealed that number theory could
provide unexpected answers to real-world problems. At the same time, improvements
in computer technology enabled number theorists to make remarkable advances in
factoring large numbers, determining primes, testing conjectures, and solving
numerical problems once considered out of reach.
Modern number theory is a broad subject that is classified into subheadings

such as elementary number theory, algebraic number theory, analytic number theory,
geometric number theory, and probabilistic number theory. These categories reflect
the methods used to address problems concerning the integers.
From Prehistory through Classical Greece
The ability to count dates back to prehistoric times. This is evident from
archaeological artifacts, such as a 10,000-year-old bone from the Congo region of
Africa with tally marks scratched upon it—signs of an unknown ancestor counting
something. Very near the dawn of civilization, people had grasped the idea of
―multiplicity‖ and thereby had taken the first steps toward a study of numbers.

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It is certain that an understanding of numbers existed in ancient

Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India, for tablets, papyri, and temple carvings from
these early cultures have survived. A Babylonian tablet known as Plimpton 322
(c. 1700 BC) is a case in point. In modern notation, it displays number triples x, y,
and z with the property that x2 + y2 = z2. One such triple is 2,291, 2,700, and 3,541,
where 2,2912 + 2,7002 = 3,5412. This certainly reveals a degree of number theoretic
sophistication in ancient Babylon.
Despite such isolated results, a general theory of numbers was nonexistent. For
this—as with so much of theoretical mathematics—one must look to the
Classical Greeks, whose groundbreaking achievements displayed an odd fusion of the
mystical tendencies of the Pythagoreans and the severe logic
of Euclid‘s Elements (c. 300 BC).
Pythagoras
According to tradition, Pythagoras (c. 580–500 BC) worked in southern Italy

amid devoted followers. His philosophy enshrined number as the unifying concept
necessary for understanding everything from planetary motion to musical harmony.
Given this viewpoint, it is not surprising that the Pythagoreans attributed quasi-
rational properties to certain numbers.
For instance, they attached significance to perfect numbers—i.e., those that

equal the sum of their proper divisors. Examples are 6 (whose proper divisors 1, 2,
and 3 sum to 6) and 28 (1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14). The Greek philosopher Nicomachus of
Gerasa (flourished c. AD 100), writing centuries after Pythagoras but clearly in his
philosophical debt, stated that perfect numbers represented ―virtues, wealth,
moderation, propriety, and beauty.‖ (Some modern writers label such nonsense
numerical theology.)
In a similar vein, the Greeks called a pair of integers amicable (―friendly‖) if

each was the sum of the proper divisors of the other. They knew only a
single amicable pair: 220 and 284. One can easily check that the sum of the proper
divisors of 284 is 1 + 2 + 4 + 71 + 142 = 220 and the sum of the proper divisors of 220 is
1 + 2 + 4 + 5 + 10 + 11 + 20 + 22 + 44 + 55 + 110 = 284. For those prone to number
mysticism, such a phenomenon must have seemed like magic.
Euclid
By contrast, Euclid presented number theory without the flourishes. He began

Book VII of his Elements by defining a number as ―a multitude composed of units.‖
The plural here excluded 1; for Euclid, 2 was the smallest ―number.‖ He later defined
a prime as a number ―measured by a unit alone‖ (i.e., whose only proper divisor is 1),
a composite as a number that is not prime, and a perfect number as one that equals
the sum of its ―parts‖ (i.e., its proper divisors).

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From there, Euclid proved a sequence of theorems that marks the beginning of
number theory as a mathematical (as opposed to a numerological) enterprise. Four
Euclidean propositions deserve special mention.
The first, Proposition 2 of Book VII, is a procedure for finding the greatest
common divisor of two whole numbers. This fundamental result is now called
the Euclidean algorithm in his honour.
Second, Euclid gave a version of what is known as the unique factorization

theorem or the fundamental theorem of arithmetic. This says that any whole number
can be factored into the product of primes in one and only one way. For example,
1,960 = 2 × 2 × 2 × 5 × 7 × 7 is a decomposition into prime factors, and no other such
decomposition exists. Euclid‘s discussion of unique factorization is not satisfactory by
modern standards, but its essence can be found in Proposition 32 of Book VII and
Proposition 14 of Book IX.
Third, Euclid showed that no finite collection of primes contains them all. His
argument, Proposition 20 of Book IX, remains one of the most elegant proofs in all
of mathematics. Beginning with any finite collection of primes—say, a, b, c, …, n—
Euclid considered the number formed by adding one to their product: N = (abc n) +
1. He then examined the two alternatives:
(1) If N is prime, then it is a new prime not among a, b, c, …, n because it is

larger than all of these. For example, if the original primes were 2, 3, and 7, then N =
(2 × 3 × 7) + 1 = 43 is a larger prime. (2) Alternately, if N is composite, it must have a
prime factor which, as Euclid demonstrated, cannot be one of the originals. To
illustrate, begin with primes 2, 7, and 11, so that N = (2 × 7 × 11) + 1 = 155. This is
composite, but its prime factors 5 and 31 do not appear among the originals. Either
way, a finite set of primes can always be augmented. It follows, by this beautiful
piece of logic, that the collection of primes is infinite.
Fourth, Euclid ended Book IX with a blockbuster: if the series 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + …

+ 2 sums to a prime, then the number N = 2k(1 + 2 + 4 + … + 2k) must be perfect. For
k
example, 1 + 2 + 4 = 7, a prime, so 4(1 + 2 + 4) = 28 is perfect. Euclid‘s ―recipe‖

for perfect numbers was a most impressive achievement for its day.
Diophantus
Of later Greek mathematicians, especially noteworthy is Diophantus of

Alexandria (flourished c. 250), author of Arithmetica. This book features a host of
problems, the most significant of which have come to be called Diophantine
equations. These are equations whose solutions must be whole numbers. For example,
Diophantus asked for two numbers, one a square and the other a cube, such that the
sum of their squares is itself a square. In modern symbols, he sought integers x, y,
and z such that (x2)2 + (y3)2 = z2. It is easy to find real numbers satisfying this

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relationship (e.g., x = Square root of√2, y = 1, and z = Square root of√5), but the
requirement that solutions be integers makes the problem more difficult. (One answer
is x = 6, y = 3, and z = 45.) Diophantus‘s work strongly influenced later mathematics.
Number Theory In The East
The millennium following the decline of Rome saw no significant European

advances, but Chinese and Indian scholars were making their own contributions to the
theory of numbers. Motivated by questions of astronomy and the calendar,
the Chinese mathematician Sun Zi (Sun Tzu; flourished c. AD 250) tackled multiple
Diophantine equations. As one example, he asked for a whole number that when
divided by 3 leaves a remainder of 2, when divided by 5 leaves a remainder of 3, and
when divided by 7 leaves a remainder of 2 (his answer: 23). Almost a thousand years
later, Qin Jiushao (1202–61) gave a general procedure, now known as the Chinese
remainder theorem, for solving problems of this sort.
Meanwhile, Indian mathematicians were hard at work. In the 7th

century Brahmagupta took up what is now (erroneously) called the Pell equation. He
posed the challenge to find a perfect square that, when multiplied by 92 and
increased by 1, yields another perfect square. That is, he sought whole
numbers x and y such that 92x2 + 1 = y2—a Diophantine equation with quadratic terms.
Brahmagupta suggested that anyone who could solve this problem within a year
earned the right to be called a mathematician. His solution was x = 120 and y = 1,151.
In addition, Indian scholars developed the so-called Hindu-Arabic numerals—the

base-10 notation subsequently adopted by the world‘s mathematical and
civil communities (see numerals and numeral systems). Although more number
representation than number theory, these numerals have prevailed due to their
simplicity and ease of use. The Indians employed this system—including the zero—as
early as AD 800.
At about this time, the Islamic world became a mathematical powerhouse.

Situated on trade routes between East and West, Islamic scholars absorbed the works
of other civilizations and augmented these with homegrown achievements. For
example, Thabit ibn Qurrah (active in Baghdad in the 9th century) returned to the
Greek problem of amicable numbers and discovered a second pair: 17,296 and 18,416.
Modern Number Theory
As mathematics filtered from the Islamic world to Renaissance Europe, number

theory received little serious attention. The period from 1400 to 1650 saw important
advances in geometry, algebra, and probability, not to mention the discovery of

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both logarithms and analytic geometry. But number theory was regarded as a minor
subject, largely of recreational interest.
Pierre de Fermat
Credit for changing this perception goes to Pierre de Fermat (1601–65), a French
magistrate with time on his hands and a passion for numbers. Although he published
little, Fermat posed the questions and identified the issues that have shaped number
theory ever since. Here are a few examples:
1. In 1640 he stated what is known as Fermat‘s little theorem—namely, that

if p is prime and a is any whole number, then p divides evenly into ap − a. Thus,
if p = 7 and a = 12, the far-from-obvious conclusion is that 7 is a divisor of 127 −
12 = 35,831,796. This theorem is one of the great tools of modern number
theory.
2. Fermat investigated the two types of odd primes: those that are one more than
a multiple of 4 and those that are one less. These are designated as the 4k + 1
primes and the 4k − 1 primes, respectively. Among the former are 5 = 4 × 1 + 1
and 97 = 4 × 24 + 1; among the latter are 3 = 4 × 1 − 1 and 79 = 4 × 20 − 1.
Fermat asserted that any prime of the form 4k + 1 can be written as the sum of
two squares in one and only one way, whereas a prime of the form 4k − 1 cannot
be written as the sum of two squares in any manner whatever. Thus, 5 = 2 2 +
12 and 97 = 92 + 42, and these have no alternative decompositions into sums of
squares. On the other hand, 3 and 79 cannot be so decomposed.
This dichotomy among primes ranks as one of the landmarks of number theory.
3. In 1638 Fermat asserted that every whole number can be expressed as the sum
of four or fewer squares. He claimed to have a proof but did not share it.
4. Fermat stated that there cannot be a right triangle with sides of integer length
whose area is a perfect square. This amounts to saying that there do not exist
integers x, y, z, and w such that x2 + y2 = z2 (the Pythagorean relationship) and
that w2 = 1/2(base) (height) = xy/2.
Uncharacteristically, Fermat provided a proof of this last result. He used a

technique called infinite descent that was ideal for demonstrating impossibility. The
logical strategy assumes that there are whole numbers satisfying the condition in
question and then generates smaller whole numbers satisfying it as well. Reapplying
the argument over and over, Fermat produced an endless sequence of decreasing
whole numbers. But this is impossible, for any set of positive integers must contain a
smallest member. By this contradiction, Fermat concluded that no such numbers can
exist in the first place.
Two other assertions of Fermat should be mentioned. One was that any number of
the form 22n + 1 must be prime. He was correct if n = 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, for the formula

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yields primes 220 + 1 = 3, 221 + 1 = 5, 222 + 1 = 17, 223 + 1 = 257, and 224 + 1 = 65,537.
These are now called Fermat primes. Unfortunately for his reputation, the next such
number 225 + 1 = 232 + 1 = 4,294,967,297 is not a prime (more about that later). Even
Fermat was not invincible.
The second assertion is one of the most famous statements from the history
of mathematics. While reading Diophantus‘s Arithmetica, Fermat wrote in the book‘s
margin: ―To divide a cube into two cubes, a fourth power, or in general any power
whatever into two powers of the same denomination above the second is impossible.‖
He added that ―I have assuredly found an admirable proof of this, but the margin is
too narrow to contain it.‖
In symbols, he was claiming that if n > 2, there are no whole numbers x, y, z such
that xn + yn = zn, a statement that came to be known as Fermat‘s last theorem. For
three and a half centuries, it defeated all who attacked it, earning a reputation as
the most famous unsolved problem in mathematics.
Despite Fermat‘s genius, number theory still was relatively neglected. His
reluctance to supply proofs was partly to blame, but perhaps more detrimental was
the appearance of the calculus in the last decades of the 17th century. Calculus is the
most useful mathematical tool of all, and scholars eagerly applied its ideas to a range
of real-world problems. By contrast, number theory seemed too ―pure,‖ too divorced
from the concerns of physicists, astronomers, and engineers.
Number theory in the 18th century
Credit for bringing number theory into the mainstream, for finally realizing
Fermat‘s dream, is due to the 18th century‘s dominant mathematical figure, the
Swiss Leonhard Euler (1707–83). Euler was the most prolific mathematician ever—and
one of the most influential—and when he turned his attention to number theory, the
subject could no longer be ignored.
Initially, Euler shared the widespread indifference of his colleagues, but he was
in correspondence with Christian Goldbach (1690–1764), a number theory enthusiast
acquainted with Fermat‘s work. Like an insistent salesman, Goldbach tried to interest
Euler in the theory of numbers, and eventually his insistence paid off.
It was a letter of December 1, 1729, in which Goldbach asked Euler, ―Is

Fermat‘s observation known to you, that all numbers 2 2n + 1 are primes?‖ This caught
Euler‘s attention. Indeed, he showed that Fermat‘s assertion was wrong by splitting
the number 225 + 1 into the product of 641 and 6,700,417.
Through the next five decades, Euler published over a thousand pages of
research on number theory, much of it furnishing proofs of Fermat‘s assertions. In
1736 he proved Fermat‘s little theorem (cited above). By midcentury he had

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established Fermat‘s theorem that primes of the form 4k + 1 can be uniquely

expressed as the sum of two squares. He later took up the matter of perfect numbers,
demonstrating that any even perfect number must assume the form discovered
by Euclid 20 centuries earlier (see above). And when he turned his attention
to amicable numbers—of which, by this time, only three pairs were known—Euler
vastly increased the world‘s supply by finding 58 new ones!
Of course, even Euler could not solve every problem. He gave proofs, or near-
proofs, of Fermat‘s last theorem for exponents n = 3 and n = 4 but despaired of
finding a general solution. And he was completely stumped by Goldbach‘s assertion
that any even number greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two primes.
Euler endorsed the result—today known as the Goldbach conjecture—but
acknowledged his inability to prove it.
Euler gave number theory a mathematical legitimacy, and thereafter progress

was rapid. In 1770, for instance, Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) proved Fermat‘s
assertion that every whole number can be written as the sum of four or fewer
squares. Soon thereafter, he established a beautiful result known as Wilson‘s
theorem: p is prime if and only if p divides evenly into[(p−1) × (p−2) × × 3 × 2 × 1] +
1.
Number theory in the 19th century
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae
Of immense significance was the 1801 publication of Disquisitiones

Arithmeticae by Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855). This became, in a sense, the holy
writ of number theory. In it Gauss organized and summarized much of the work of his
predecessors before moving boldly to the frontier of research. Observing that the
problem of resolving composite numbers into prime factors is ―one of the most
important and useful in arithmetic,‖ Gauss provided the first modern proof of
the unique factorization theorem. He also gave the first proof of the law of quadratic
reciprocity, a deep result previously glimpsed by Euler. To expedite his work, Gauss
introduced the idea of congruence among numbers—i.e., he defined a and b to
be congruent modulo m (written a ≡ b mod m) if m divides evenly into the
difference a − b. For instance, 39 ≡ 4 mod 7. This innovation, when combined with
results like Fermat‘s little theorem, has become an indispensable fixture of number
theory.
From classical to analytic number theory
Inspired by Gauss, other 19th-century mathematicians took up the

challenge. Sophie Germain (1776–1831), who once stated, ―I have never ceased
thinking about the theory of numbers,‖ made important contributions to Fermat‘s last

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theorem, and Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752–1833) and Peter Gustav Lejeune

Dirichlet (1805–59) confirmed the theorem for n = 5—i.e., they showed that the sum
of two fifth powers cannot be a fifth power. In 1847 Ernst Kummer (1810–93) went
further, demonstrating that Fermat‘s last theorem was true for a large class of
exponents; unfortunately, he could not rule out the possibility that it was false for a
large class of exponents, so the problem remained unresolved.
The same Dirichlet (who reportedly kept a copy of Gauss‘s Disquisitiones

Arithmeticae by his bedside for evening reading) made a profound contribution by
proving that, if a and b have no common factor, then
the arithmetic progression a, a + b, a + 2b, a + 3b, … must contain infinitely many
primes. Among other things, this established that there are infinitely many 4k + 1
primes and infinitely many 4k − 1 primes as well. But what made this theorem so
exceptional was Dirichlet‘s method of proof: he employed the techniques of calculus
to establish a result in number theory. This surprising but ingenious strategy marked
the beginning of a new branch of the subject: analytic number theory.
Prime number theorem
One of the supreme achievements of 19th-century mathematics was the prime

number theorem, and it is worth a brief digression. To begin, designate the number of
primes less than or equal to n by π(n). Thus π(10) = 4 because 2, 3, 5, and 7 are the
four primes not exceeding 10. Similarly π(25) = 9 and π(100) = 25. Next, consider the
proportion of numbers less than or equal to n that are prime—i.e., π(n)/n. Clearly
π(10)/10 = 0.40, meaning that 40 percent of the numbers not exceeding 10 are
prime.
A pattern is anything but clear, but the prime number theorem identifies one,
at least approximately, and thereby provides a rule for the distribution of primes
among the whole numbers. The theorem says that, for large n, the proportion
π(n)/n is roughly 1/log n, where log n is the natural logarithm of n. This link between
primes and logs is nothing short of extraordinary.
One of the first to perceive this was the young Gauss, whose examination of log
tables and prime numbers suggested it to his fertile mind. Following Dirichlet‘s
exploitation of analytic techniques in number theory, Bernhard Riemann (1826–66)
and Pafnuty Chebyshev (1821–94) made substantial progress before the prime number
theorem was proved in 1896 by Jacques Hadamard (1865–1963) and Charles Jean de la
Vallée-Poussin (1866–1962). This brought the 19th century to a triumphant close.
Number Theory In The 20th Century
The next century saw an explosion in number theoretic research. Along with
classical and analytic number theory, scholars now explored specialized subfields such
as algebraic number theory, geometric number theory, and combinatorial number

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theory. The concepts became more abstract and the techniques more sophisticated.
Unquestionably, the subject had grown beyond Fermat‘s wildest dreams.
One of the great contributors from early in the 20th century was the
incandescent genius Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920). Ramanujan, whose formal
training was as limited as his life was short, burst upon the mathematical scene with a
series of brilliant discoveries. Analytic number theory was among his specialties, and
his publications carried titles such as ―Highly composite numbers‖ and ―Proof that
almost all numbers n are composed of about log(log n) prime factors.‖
A legendary figure in 20th-century number theory was Paul Erdős (1913–96), a

Hungarian genius known for his deep insights, his vast circle of collaborators, and his
personal eccentricities. At age 18, Erdős published a much-simplified proof of a
theorem of Chebyshev stating that, if n ≥ 2, then there must be a prime
between n and 2n. This was the first in a string of number theoretic results that would
span most of the century. In the process, Erdős—who also worked
in combinatorics, graph theory, and dimension theory—published over 1,500 papers
with more than 500 collaborators from around the world. He achieved this astonishing
output while living more or less out of a suitcase, traveling constantly from one
university to another in pursuit of new mathematics. It was not uncommon for him to
arrive, unannounced, with the declaration that ―My brain is open‖ and then to plunge
into the latest problem with gusto.
Two later developments deserve mention. One was the invention of the
electronic computer, whose speed has been advantageously applied to number
theoretic questions. As an example, Euler once speculated that at least four fourth
powers must be added together for the sum to be a fourth power. But in 1988, using a
combination of mathematical insight and computer muscle, the American Noam Elkies
discovered that 2,682,4404 + 15,365,6394 + 18,796,7604 = 20,615,6734—a stupendous
counterexample that destroyed Euler‘s conjecture. (The number on the right contains
30 digits, so there is little wonder that Euler missed it.)
Second, number theory acquired an applied flavour, for it became instrumental

in designing encryption schemes widely used in government and business. These rely
upon the factorization of gigantic numbers into primes—a factorization that the
code‘s user knows and the potential code-breaker does not. This application runs
counter to the long-held perception of number theory as beautiful but essentially
useless. (See cryptology: Cryptography.)
Twentieth-century number theory reached a much-publicized climax in 1995,

when Fermat‘s last theorem was proved by the Englishman Andrew Wiles, with timely
assistance from his British colleague Richard Taylor. Wiles succeeded where so many
had failed with a 130-page proof of incredible complexity, one that certainly would
not fit into any margin.

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Lesson 3
 Birth of set theory and problems in the foundations of

mathematics
Set theory, branch of mathematics that deals with the properties of well-
defined collections of objects, which may or may not be of a mathematical nature,
such as numbers or functions. The theory is less valuable in direct application to
ordinary experience than as a basis for precise and adaptable terminology for the
definition of complex and sophisticated mathematical concepts.
Between the years 1874 and 1897, the German mathematician and
logician Georg Cantor created a theory of abstract sets of entities and made it into a
mathematical discipline. This theory grew out of his investigations of some concrete
problems regarding certain types of infinite sets of real numbers. A set, wrote Cantor,
is a collection of definite, distinguishable objects of perception or thought conceived
as a whole. The objects are called elements or members of the set.
The theory had the revolutionary aspect of treating infinite sets as

mathematical objects that are on an equal footing with those that can be constructed
in a finite number of steps. Since antiquity, a majority of mathematicians had
carefully avoided the introduction into their arguments of the actual infinite (i.e., of
sets containing an infinity of objects conceived as existing simultaneously, at least in
thought). Since this attitude persisted until almost the end of the 19th century,
Cantor‘s work was the subject of much criticism to the effect that it dealt with
fictions—indeed, that it encroached on the domain of philosophers and violated the
principles of religion. Once applications to analysis began to be found, however,
attitudes began to change, and by the 1890s Cantor‘s ideas and results were gaining
acceptance. By 1900, set theory was recognized as a distinct branch of mathematics
At just that time, however, several contradictions in so-called naive set theory
were discovered. In order to eliminate such problems, an axiomatic basis was
developed for the theory of sets analogous to that developed for
elementary geometry. The degree of success that has been achieved in this
development, as well as the present stature of set theory, has been well expressed in
the Nicolas Bourbaki Éléments de mathématique (begun 1939; ―Elements of
Mathematics‖): ―Nowadays it is known to be possible, logically speaking, to derive
practically the whole of known mathematics from a single source, The Theory of
Sets.‖

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 MODULE SUMMARY
In module III, you have learned about the development of mathematics. You have
learned the development of numbers in modern period. Also you were taught about
the Non-Euclidean Geometries, Modern algebra and number theory, and Birth of set
theory and problems in the foundations of mathematics.
There are three lessons in module I. Lesson 1 focused on the introduction of Non-
Euclidean Geometries.
Lesson 2 deals with the development of Modern Algebra and Number Theory.
Lesson 3 discusses the introduction of Birth of Set theory.
Congratulations! You have just studied Module III. now you are ready to evaluate how
Luck!!!

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 SUMMATIVE TEST
1. Differentiate Euclidean geometry to Non-Euclidean Geometry.
2. Discuss and give examples of the following: 1) Spherical geometry 2) Elliptic
geometry 3) Hyperbolic geometry
3. Give examples of amicable numbers
4. Show that if p > 3 is a prime, then p2 ≡ 1 (mod 24).
5. How many zeros are at the end of 1000!?
6. Discuss the improvement of Number Theory that leads to Abstract Algebra
7. Let A, B, C be three sets as shown in the following Venn diagram. For each of
the following sets, draw a Venn diagram and shade the area representing the
given set.
a. A∪B∪C
b. A∩B∩C
c. A∪(B∩C)
d. A−(B∩C)
e. A∪(B∩C)c

MODULE IV
The Nature of Mathematics
LESSON 1 - What is mathematics?
LESSON 2 - What do mathematicians

do?
LESSON 3 - Is mathematics invented

or created?
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MODULE IV
THE NATURE OF MATHEMATICS
 INTRODUCTION
This module presents the nature of mathematics. It is where your will learn
what is mathematics, what so mathematicians do and is math created or discovered.
OBJECTIVES
10. Discuss what is mathematics from a variety of points of view

11. Discuss and describe what mathematicians do.
12. Discuss and debate the origin of mathematics
SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module IV-

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Lesson 1
 What is mathematics?
Carl Friedrich Gauss one of the greatest mathematicians, is said to have

claimed: "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and number theory is the queen of
mathematics." The properties of primes play a crucial part in number theory. An
intriguing question is how they are distributed among the other integers.
Mathematics, the science of structure, order, and relation that has evolved
from elemental practices of counting, measuring, and describing the shapes of
objects. It deals with logical reasoning and quantitative calculation, and its
development has involved an increasing degree of idealization and abstraction of its
subject matter. Since the 17th century, mathematics has been an indispensable
adjunct to the physical sciences and technology, and in more recent times it has
assumed a similar role in the quantitative aspects of the life sciences.
In many cultures—under the stimulus of the needs of practical pursuits, such as

commerce and agriculture—mathematics has developed far beyond basic counting.
This growth has been greatest in society‘s complex enough to sustain these activities
and to provide leisure for contemplation and the opportunity to build on the
achievements of earlier mathematicians.
All mathematical systems (for example, Euclidean geometry) are combinations

of sets of axioms and of theorems that can be logically deduced from the axioms.
Inquiries into the logical and philosophical basis of mathematics reduce to questions
of whether the axioms of a given system ensure its completeness and its consistency.
There are creative tensions in mathematics between beauty and utility,

abstraction and application, between a search for unity and a desire to treat
phenomena comprehensively. Keith Devlin has called mathematics a "science of
patterns", which ties in with the ideas of beauty, abstraction and the search for unity.
He has also said that "mathematics makes the invisible visible‖, referring to
representation, modeling and application of mathematics. For example, drawing a bar
graph makes statistical information visible.
Here is a quote from the Foreword to the Japanese Edition of an 11th grade
text [Kodaira 1991]:
Mathematics was originally linked with science and technology; however, it gradually
became independent of science and technology, and present-day mathematicians think freely
about virtually everything possible. Therefore, mathematics is said to be a free creation of
the human spirit.
Special characteristics of mathematics are the clarity and precision of

definitions, including usage of words in ways that differ from their use in everyday

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language, and the certainty of mathematical truth based on deductive mathematical

reasoning. Given what Wigner call the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics",
all students should learn the basic nature of mathematics and mathematical reasoning
and its use in organizing and modeling natural phenomena.
In the practice of mathematics, typically some concepts and statements are

taken as given. They may be applied or serve as the foundation for the development
of further mathematics. Additional concepts can be defined carefully in terms of the
given ones. Conjectures can be developed on the basis of experience with examples.
Further statements can be proved deductively based on what has been assumed. This
process has been repeated extensively, resulting in mathematics having its own
intricate structure, with concepts and areas of specialization that require
considerable time and study to grasp.
Moreover mathematics is interconnected in many interesting ways. It may be

useful [Swafford 1997] to think of students learning mathematics along the lines of a
generalized structure of reasoning based on the van Hiele levels developed in the
1950s [Van Hiele 1986]: (1)recognition, (2)analysis, (3)informal deduction, (4)formal
deduction, (5) axiomatic. In early grades, students learn the basic language including
the critical logical words "and", "or", "not", "there is/are", "for some", "for every", "for
all". They see multidigit numbers being built from single digit numbers. They match
the trajectory of a kicked ball with the concept of line. They recognize patterns in
sequences of numbers and shapes.
In middle grades students develop habits of reasoning "locally", clarifying the

assumptions of a particular problems and examining the steps involved in the solution
to determine correctness. For example, one of us recently observed a fifth grade
teacher asking her students for the definition of polygon. They knew, for example
that triangles, squares and hexagons were polygons. It was exciting to see the
students wrestling with abstraction, differentiating polygons from circles, and finally
focusing on polygons as figures with sides.
By the end of high school, students should be aware of the global deductive
nature of axiomatic mathematics. They should be familiar with the connections
between our number systems and algebra, between algebra and geometry. They
should be comfortable reasoning with short sequences of statements with Venn
diagrams and other visual and diagrammatic methods. They should have experience
with modeling, recognizing for example that certain natural phenomena obey linear
relationships and that linear relationships make prediction so easy that we try to
approximate other more complicated phenomena by linear ones. It is important both
to understand how algebraic relationships can describe particular problems and to
understand the power derived by working abstractly with the mathematics which
applies to many different situations.

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Lesson 2
 What do mathematicians do?
Whether it be at a party or at a tavern or while being examined by a physician,

on announcing that you are a mathematician, you are likely to be greeted with
comments about your companion‘s failure in high school math, or a request for a brief
account of the proof of Fermat‘s Last Theorem, or perhaps an offer of a
counterexample to the Four Color Theorem. Your parents, your friends and relatives,
airplane seatmates, or your dean or provost are not likely to be mathematicians, and
they too would like to know what you do, preferably in bite-sized pieces. Might we
provide an everyday description that has sufficient technical detail so that a
mathematician would recognize the work as real research mathematics? I suggest that
if we think of mathematical work as showing that what might seem arbitrary is
actually necessary, as analyzing everyday notions, as calculation, and as analogizing.
Conventions
Mathematicians make certain notions conventional. What might seem arbitrary

is shown to be in effect necessary, at least within a wide enough range of situations.
For example, means and variances were once taken merely as ways of ―combining
observations‖, to use a term of art of two hundred years ago. There were other ways,
including medians and average absolute deviations (Σ|xi − x|/N). But through the
central limit theorem, for example, the variance became entrenched as a good
measure of the width of a distribution for various different kinds of more or less
identically distributed independent random variables. Moreover, it was easy to depict
such statistics in a Euclidean space of observations, the various formulas being
Pythagorean theorems with Euclidean distances.
Analyzing Everyday Notions
Mathematicians formally analyze everyday notions. Topology developed as a

way of understanding nearbyness, connectivity, and networks. It turned out that the
key idea was continuity of mappings and how that continuity was affected by other
transformations. For continuity preserved nearbyness, connectivity, and networks. Of
course, this demanded a number of conceptual and mathematical discoveries.
One great discovery was the subtleties of continuity, uniform vs. pointwise, for
example. A second discovery was the fact that one might represent continuity and
neighborhoods in terms of mappings: if the neighborhood of a point was mapped into
an open set, that neighborhood itself was open, if the mapping was continuous. A
third discovery was that networks could be characterized in terms of how they
decomposed into simpler networks and that characterization would be preserved
under continuous mappings. Moreover, a space might well be approximated by a
skeletal framework, and a study of that framework would tell us about the space. A

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fourth discovery was that that decomposition sequence had a natural algebraic analog
in commutative algebra. And a fifth discovery was that the algebraic decomposition
had a natural analog with derivatives and second derivatives (Stokes‘s and Green‘s
theorems and Gibbs‘s vector calculus), again the world of continuity. As a
consequence of this analysis, it was realized that there are many different kinds of
nearbyness and many different topologies for a space, yet they might share important
features. Functions came to be understood as mappings, in terms of what they did.
And the transcendental realm turned out to be deeply involved with the algebraic
realm. That analysis of everyday notions led to powerful technologies for analyzing
connectivity and networks, techniques vital to current society. Those technologies are
grounded in the formal mathematical analysis.
Calculation
Perhaps ―proofs should be driven not by calculation but solely by ideas‖, as

Hilbert averred in what he called Riemann‘s Principle. But some of the time, if not
often, mathematicians have to calculate—doggedly and lengthily—in order to get
interesting results. In some future time, knowing the solution, other mathematicians
may well be able to provide a one-line proof driven solely by ideas, plus a great deal
of mathematical superstructure built up in the intervening period of time. Or, in fact,
lengthy proof and calculation are unavoidable, and delicate arguments involving hairy
technology are the only way to go.
The mathematician‘s achievement is, first of all, to actually follow through on

that long and complex calculation and come to a useful conclusion, and, second, to
present that calculation so that it is mildly illuminating. As we shall see, such a
presentation involves matters of structure, organizing the whole; strategy, being able
to tell a story about how it all holds together; and tactics, being able to do what
needs to be done to get on with the next main step of the proof. The first proof, by
Dyson and Lenard (1967– 1968), of the stability of matter—that bulk matter, held
together by electrical forces of electrons and nuclei, won‘t collapse (then to
explode)—is considered one of these long and elaborate calculations. What one has to
prove is that the binding energy of bulk matter per nucleus is bounded from below by
a negative constant, −E∗. The proof begins with an idea: an insight by Onsager (1939)
about how to incorporate the screening of positively charged nuclei by negatively
charged electrons. But the actual calculation would seem to involve a number of
preliminary theorems and a goodly number of lemmas, all of which might seem a bit
distant from the main problem.
Actually, many of the preliminary theorems motivate the proof and indicate
what is needed if a proof is to go through. And the lemmas might be seen as lemmas
hanging from a tree of theorems or troops lined up to do particular work. As in many
such calculations, the result almost miraculously appears at the end. And in this case
the proportionality constant is about 1014 larger in absolute value than it need be. A
few years later, Lieb and Thirring (1975) were able to figure out how to efficiently
use the crucial physics of the problem (Onsager‘s screening, and also that the

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electrons are fermions and are represented by antisymmetric wave functions). As a

consequence, the proof was now about ideas, involved comparatively little
calculation, and could be readily seen in outline, and the proportionality constant was
about 10 rather than 1014. Their crucial move was to employ the Thomas-Fermi
model of an atom: the many electrons in an atom exist in a field due to their own
charges (as well as that of the nucleus), and hence one seeks a self-consistent field.
Dyson and Lenard had all these ideas except for Thomas-Fermi. But in their
pioneering proof, getting to the endpoint was avowedly more important than
efficiency or controlling the size of the proportionality constant, −E∗. Theirs was a
first proof of a fundamental fact of our world. By the way, in retrospect, the Dyson-
Lenard proof is rather less long than it once appeared, its various manipulations along
the way rather more rich with meaning. Over the next decades a variety of rigorous
proofs were provided of various fundamental facts about our world, many of which
proofs are lengthy and complex and involve much calculation.
Analogy
Some time ago, Pólya showed that analogy plays a vital role in mathematical
work. Sometimes those analogies are provably true, such as the analogy between
ideals and varieties: polynomials and their properties, considered as algebraic
objects, and the graphs of those polynomials and their properties, considered as
geometric objects. At other times, the analogies are not provable but provide for
ongoing research programs for hundreds of years. Here I want to describe a syzygy, an
analogy of analogies, between mathematical work and work in mathematical physics.
What the physicists find, the mathematicians would expect, although the
mathematicians could never have predicted such an analogy in the physical realm
without the physicists‘ work.
What Do Mathematicians Do?
Words such as convention, analyzing everyday notions, calculation, and analogy

might be used to describe activities other than mathematics. And it is just in this
sense that we might give outsiders a sense of what mathematicians do. At the same
time, those notions have very specific meanings for mathematical work. And it is just
in this latter sense that we might describe mathematics to ourselves. The shared set
of terms allows us to connect our highly technical and often esoteric work with the
work of others. Mathematicians show why some ways of thinking of the world are the
right ways, they explore our everyday intuitions and make them rather more precise,
they do long and tortuous calculations in order to reveal the consequences of their
theories, and they explore analogies of one theory with others in order to find out the
truths of the mathematical world. I would also claim that, in a very specific sense,
mathematical work is a form of philosophical analysis. The mathematicians and
mathematical physicists find out through their rigorous proofs just which features of
the world are necessary if we are to have the kind of world we do have. For example,
if there is to be stability of matter, electrons must be fermions. The mathematicians
show just what we mean by everyday notions such as an average or nearbyness. And

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mathematics connects diverse phenomena through encompassing theories and

speculative analogies. So when you are asked, What do mathematicians do?, you can
say: I like to think we are just like lawyers or philosophers who explore the meanings
of our everyday concepts, we are like inventors who employ analogies to solve
problems, and we are like marketers who try to convince others they ought to think
―Kodak‖ when they hear ―photography‖ (or the competition, who try to convince
them that they ought to think ―Fuji‖). Moreover, some of the time, our work is not
unlike solving a two-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, all in one color. That surely
involves lots of scut work, but also ingenuity along the way in dividing up the work,
sorting the pieces, and knowing that it often makes sense to build the border first.

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Lesson 3
 Is mathematics invented or created?
Mathematics is the language of science and has enabled mankind to make

extraordinary technological advances. There is no question that the logic and order
that underpins mathematics, has served us in describing the patterns and structure
we find in nature.
The successes that have been achieved, from the mathematics of the cosmos
down to electronic devices at the microscale, are significant. Einstein remarked,
―How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is
independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?‖
Amongst mathematicians and scientists there is no consensus on this fascinating
question. The various types of responses to Einstein‘s conundrum include:
1) Math is innate. The reason mathematics is the natural language of science, is that
the universe is underpinned by the same order. The structures of mathematics are
intrinsic to nature. Moreover, if the universe disappeared tomorrow, our eternal
mathematical truths would still exist. It is up to us to discover mathematics and its
workings—this will then assist us in building models that will give us predictive power
and understanding of the physical phenomena we seek to control. This rather
romantic position is what I loosely call mathematical Platonism.
2) Math is a human construct. The only reason mathematics is admirably suited

describing the physical world is that we invented it to do just that. It is a product of
the human mind and we make mathematics up as we go along to suit our purposes. If
the universe disappeared, there would be no mathematics in the same way that there
would be no football, tennis, chess or any other set of rules with relational structures
that we contrived. Mathematics is not discovered, it is invented. This is the non-
Platonist position.
3) Math is not so successful. Those that marvel at the ubiquity of mathematical

applications have perhaps been seduced by an overstatement of their successes.
Analytical mathematical equations only approximately describe the real world, and
even then only describe a limited subset of all the phenomena around us. We tend to
focus on those physical problems for which we find a way to apply mathematics, so
overemphasis on these successes is a form of ―cherry picking.‖ This is the realist
position.
4) Keep calm and carry on. What matters is that mathematics produces results. Save
the hot air for philosophers. This is called the ―shut up and calculate‖ position.

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The debate over the fundamental nature of mathematics is by no means new, and has
raged since the time of the Pythagoreans. Can we use our hindsight now to shed any
light on the above four positions?
A recent development within the last century was the discovery of fractals.
Beautiful complex patterns, such as the Mandelbrot set, can be generated from
simple iterative equations. Mathematical Platonists eagerly point out that elegant
fractal patterns are common in nature, and that mathematicians clearly discover
rather than invent them. A counterargument is that any set of rules has emergent
properties. For example, the rules of chess are clearly a human contrivance, yet they
result in a set of elegant and sometimes surprising characteristics. There are infinite
numbers of possible iterative equations one can possibly construct, and if we focus on
the small subset that result in beautiful fractal patterns we have merely seduced
ourselves.
Take the example of infinite monkeys on keyboards. It appears miraculous

when an individual monkey types a Shakespeare sonnet. But when we see the whole
context, we realize all the monkeys are merely typing gibberish. In a similar way, it is
easy to be seduced into thinking that mathematics is miraculously innate if we are
overly focused on its successes, without viewing the complete picture.
The non-Platonist view is that, first, all mathematical models are

approximations of reality. Second, our models fail, they go through a process of
revision, and we invent new mathematics as needed. Analytical mathematical
expressions are a product of the human mind, tailored for the mind. Because of our
limited brainpower we seek out compact elegant mathematical descriptions to make
predictions. Those predictions are not guaranteed to be correct, and experimental
verification is always required. What we have witnessed over the past few decades, as
transistor sizes have shrunk, is that nice compact mathematical expressions for ultra
small transistors are not possible. We could use highly cumbersome equations, but
that isn‘t the point of mathematics. So we resort to computer simulations using
empirical models. And this is how much of cutting edge engineering is done these
days.
The realist picture is simply an extension of this non-Platonist position,

emphasizing that compact analytical mathematical expressions of the physical world
around us are not as successful or ubiquitous as we‘d like to believe. The picture that
consistently emerges is that all mathematical models of the physical world break
down at some point. Moreover, the types of problems addressed by elegant
mathematical expressions are a rapidly shrinking subset of all the currently emerging
scientific questions.
But why does this all matter? The ―shut up and calculate‖ position tells us to not
worry about such questions.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_xR5Kes4Rs
 MODULE SUMMARY
In module IV, you have learned about the nature of mathematics that defines and
described what mathematics is, what skills that mathematicians do and debates
between mathematics is invented or created.
There are three lessons in module IV. Lesson 1 focused on the beginning of
mathematics.
Lesson 2 deals with mathematicians on what they do.
Lesson 3 discusses mathematics wherein it is invented or created.
Congratulations! You have just studied Module IV. Now you are ready to evaluate how
Luck!!!
 SUMMATIVE TEST
1. In your own words, answer the following questions.
a. What is Mathematics? Justify
b. Where Should We Study Mathematics?
c. How Should We Learn Mathematics?
d. Who Should Learn Mathematics?
e. Should Mathematics Be A Required Subject?
f. What Is The (New?) Purpose of Math Education

MODULE V
Issues and Aspects
LESSON 1 - The concepts and role of

the proof
LESSON 2 - Mathematics and

technology
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MODULE V
ISSUES AND ASPECTS
 INTRODUCTION
This module presents the issues and aspect. It is where your will learn the
concept of proof or way of proving and the integration of technology in mathematics.
OBJECTIVES
13. Discuss the foundations and formalism of mathematics

14. Discuss the relationship between mathematics and emergence of technology
There are two lessons in the module. Read each lesson carefully then answer
SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module V-

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Lesson 1
 The concepts and role of the proof
A mathematician is a master of critical thinking, of analysis, and of deductive

reasoning. These skills travel well, and can be applied in a large variety of situations—
and in many different disciplines. Today, mathematical skills are being put to good
use in medicine, physics, law, commerce, Internet design, engineering, chemistry,
biological science, social science, anthropology, genetics, warfare, cryptography,
plastic surgery, security analysis, data manipulation, computer science, and in many
other disciplines and endeavors as well.
The unique feature that sets mathematics apart from other sciences, from
philosophy, and indeed from all other forms of intellectual discourse, is the use of
rigorous proof. It is the proof concept that makes the subject cohere, that gives it its
timelessness, and that enables it to travel well. The purpose of this discussion is to
describe proof, to put it in context, to give its history, and to explain its significance.
There is no other scientific or analytical discipline that uses proof as readily

and routinely as does mathematics. This is the device that makes theoretical
mathematics special: the tightly knit chain of reasoning, following strict logical rules,
that leads inexorably to a particular conclusion. It is proof that is our device for
establishing the absolute and irrevocable truth of statements in our subject. This is
the reason that we can depend on mathematics that was done by Euclid 2300 years
ago as readily as we believe in the mathematics that is done today. No other
discipline can make such an assertion.
The Concept of Proof
The tradition of mathematics is a long and glorious one. Along with philosophy,
it is the oldest venue of human intellectual inquiry. It is in the nature of the human
condition to want to understand the world around us, and mathematics is a natural
vehicle for doing so. Mathematics is also a subject that is beautiful and worthwhile in
its own right. A scholarly pursuit that had intrinsic merit and aesthetic appeal,
mathematics is certainly worth studying for its own sake.
In its earliest days, mathematics was often bound up with practical questions.
The Egyptians, as well as the Greeks, were concerned with surveying land. Thus it was
natural to consider questions of geometry and trigonometry. Certainly triangles and
rectangles came up in a natural way in this context, so early geometry concentrated
on these constructs. Circles, too, were natural to consider—for the design of arenas
and water tanks and other practical projects. So ancient geometry (and Euclid‘s
axioms for geometry) discussed circles.

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The earliest mathematics was phenomenological. If one could draw a plausible

picture, or give a compelling description, then that was all the justification that was
needed for a mathematical ―fact‖. Sometimes one argued by analogy. Or by invoking
the gods.
The notion that mathematical statements could be proved was not yet an idea
that had been developed. There was no standard for the concept of proof. The logical
structure, the ―rules of the game‖, had not yet been created.
Thus we are led to ask: What is a proof? Heuristically, a proof is a rhetorical

device for convincing someone else that a mathematical statement is true or valid.
And how might one do this? A moment‘s thought suggests that a natural way to prove
that something new (call it B) is true is to relate it to something old (call it A) that
has already been accepted as true. Thus arises the concept of deriving a new result
from an old result. See Figure 2. The next question then is, ―How was the old result
verified?‖ Applying this regimen repeatedly, we find ourselves considering a chain of
reasoning as in Figure 3. But then one cannot help but ask: ―Where does the chain
begin?‖ And this is a fundamental issue.

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It will not do to say that the chain has no beginning: it extends infinitely far
back into the fogs of time. Because if that were the case it would undercut our
thinking of what a proof should be. We are endeavoring to justify new mathematical
facts in terms of old mathematical facts. But if the reasoning regresses infinitely far
back into the past, then we cannot in fact ever grasp a basis or initial justification for
our reasoning. As we shall see below, the answer to these questions is that the
mathematician puts into place definitions and axioms before beginning to explore the
firmament, determine what is true, and then to prove it. Considerable discussion will
be required to put this paradigm into context.
As a result of these questions, ancient mathematicians had to think hard about

the nature of mathematical proof. Thales (640 B.C.E.–546 B.C.E.), Eudoxus (408
B.C.E.–355 B.C.E.), and Theaetetus of Athens (417 B.C.E.– 369 B.C.E.) actually
formulated theorems. Thales definitely proved some theorems in geometry (and these
were later put into a broader context by Euclid). A theorem is the mathematician‘s
formal enunciation of a fact or truth. But Eudoxus fell short in finding means to prove
his theorems. His work had a distinctly practical bent, and he was particularly fond of
calculations.
It was Euclid of Alexandria who first formalized the way that we now think
about mathematics. Euclid had definitions and axioms and then theorems—in that
order. There is no gainsaying the assertion that Euclid set the paradigm by which we
have been practicing mathematics for 2300 years. This was mathematics done right.
Now, following Euclid, in order to address the issue of the infinitely regressing chain
of reasoning, we begin our studies by putting into place a set of Definitions and a set
of Axioms.
What is a definition? A definition explains the meaning of a piece of

terminology. There are logical problems with even this simple idea, for consider the
first definition that we are going to formulate. Suppose that we wish to define a
rectangle. This will be the first piece of terminology in our mathematical system.
What words can we use to define it? Suppose that we define rectangle in terms of
points and lines and planes and right angles. That begs the questions: What is a point?
What is a line? What is a plane? How do we define ―angle‖? What is a right angle?

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Thus we see that our first definition(s) must be formulated in terms of

commonly accepted words that require no further explanation. It was Aristotle (384
B.C.E.–322 B.C.E.) who insisted that a definition must describe the concept being
defined in terms of other concepts already known. This is often quite difficult. As an
example, Euclid defined a point to be that which has no part. Thus he is using words
outside of mathematics, that are a commonly accepted part of everyday argot, to
explain the precise mathematical notion of ―point‖.2 Once ―point‖ is defined, then
one can use that term in later definitions—for example, to define ―line‖. And one will
also use everyday language that does not require further explication. That is how we
build up our system of definitions.
The definitions give us then a language for doing mathematics. We formulate

our results, or theorems, by using the words that have been established in the
definitions. But wait, we are not yet ready for theorems. Because we have to lay
cornerstones upon which our reasoning can develop. That is the purpose of axioms.
What is an axiom? An axiom (or postulate) is a mathematical statement of fact,

formulated using the terminology that has been defined in the definitions, that is
taken to be self-evident. An axiom embodies a crisp, clean mathematical assertion.
One does not prove an axiom. One takes the axiom to be given, and to be so obvious
and plausible that no proof is required.
Generally speaking, in any subject area of mathematics, one begins with a

brief list of definitions and a brief list of axioms. Once these are in place, and are
accepted and understood, then one can begin proving theorems. and what is a proof?
A proof is a rhetorical device for convincing another mathematician that a given
statement (the theorem) is true. Thus a proof can take many different forms. The
most traditional form of mathematical proof is that it is a tightly knit sequence of
statements linked together by strict rules of logic. But the purpose of the present
article is to discuss and consider the various forms that a proof might take. Today, a
proof could (and often does) take the traditional form that goes back 2300 years to
the time of Euclid. But it could also consist of a computer calculation. Or it could
consist of constructing a physical model. Or it could consist of a computer simulation
or model. Or it could consist of a computer algebra computation using Mathematica or
Maple or MatLab. It could also consist of an agglomeration of these various
techniques.
What Does a Proof Consist Of?
Most of the steps of a mathematical proof are applications of the elementary

rules of logic. This is a slight oversimplification, as there are a great many proof
techniques that have been developed over the past two centuries. These include
proof by mathematical induction, proof by contradiction, proof by exhaustion, and
proof by enumeration, and many others. But they are all built on one simple rule:
modus ponendo ponens. This rule of logic says that if we know that ―A implies B‖, and

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if we know ―A‖, then we may conclude B. Thus a proof is a sequence of steps linked
together by modus ponendo ponens.
It is really an elegant and powerful system. Occam‘s Razor is a logical principle

posited in the fourteenth century (by William of Occam (1288 C.E.–1348 C.E.)) which
advocates that your proof system should have the smallest possible set of axioms and
logical rules. That way you minimize the possibility that there are internal
contradictions built into the system, and also you make it easier to find the source of
your ideas. Inspired both by Euclid‘s Elements and by Occam‘s Razor, mathematics
has striven for all of modern time to keep the fundamentals of its subject as
streamlined and elegant as possible. We want our list of definitions to be as short as
possible, and we want our collection of axioms or postulates to be as concise and
elegant as possible. If you open up a classic text on group theory—such as Marshall
Hall‘s masterpiece [HAL], you will find that there are just three axioms on the first
page. The entire 434-page book is built on just those three axioms. or instead have a
look at Walter Rudin‘s classic Principles of Mathematical Analysis [RUD]. There the
subject of real variables is built on just twelve axioms. Or look at a foundational book
on set theory like Suppes [SUP] or Hrbacek and Jech [HRJ]. There we see the entire
subject built on eight axioms.
The Purpose of Proof
The experimental sciences (physics, biology, chemistry, for example) tend to

use laboratory experiments or tests to check and verify assertions. The benchmark in
these subjects is the reproducible experiment with control. In their published papers,
these scientists will briefly describe what they have discovered, and how they carried
out the steps of the corresponding experiment. They will describe the control, which
is the standard against which the experimental results are compared. Those scientists
who are interested can, on reading the article, then turn around and replicate the
experiment in their own labs. The really classic, and fundamental and important,
experiments become classroom material and are reproduced by students all over the
world. Most experimental science is not derived from fundamental principles (like
axioms). The intellectual process is more empirical, and the verification procedure is
correspondingly practical and direct.
Mathematics is quite a different sort of intellectual enterprise. In mathematics

we set our definitions and axioms in place before we do anything else. In particular,
before we endeavor to derive any results we must engage in a certain amount of
preparatory work. Then we give precise, elegant formulations of statements and we
prove them. Any statement in mathematics which lacks a proof has no currency.
Nobody will take it as valid. And nobody will use it in his/her own work. The proof is
the final test of any new idea. And, once a proof is in place that is the end of the
discussion. Nobody will ever find a counterexample, nor ever gainsay that particular
mathematical fact.

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Another special feature of mathematics is its timelessness. The theorems that

Euclid and Pythagoras proved 2500 years ago are still valid today; and we use them
with confidence because we know that they are just as true today as they were when
those great masters first discovered them. Other sciences are quite different. The
medical or computer science literature of even three years ago is considered to be
virtually useless. Because what people thought was correct a few years ago has
already changed and migrated and transmogrified. Mathematics, by contrast, is here
forever.
What is marvelous is that, in spite of the appearance of some artificiality in the

mathematical process, mathematics provides beautiful models for nature. Over and
over again, and more with each passing year, mathematics has helped to explain how
the world around us works. Just a few examples illustrate the point: • Isaac Newton
derived Kepler‘s three laws of planetary motion from just his universal law of
gravitation and calculus. • There is a complete mathematical theory of the refraction
of light (due to Isaac Newton, Willebrord Snell, and Pierre de Fermat).
• There is a mathematical theory of the propagation of heat.
• There is a mathematical theory of electromagnetic waves.
• All of classical field theory from physics is formulated in terms of

mathematics.
• Einstein‘s field equations are analyzed using mathematics.
• The motion of falling bodies and projectiles is completely analyzable with

mathematics.
• The technology for locating distant submarines using radar and sonar waves is
all founded in mathematics.
• The theory of image processing and image compression is all founded in

mathematics.
• The design of music CDs is all based on Fourier analysis and coding theory,
both branches of mathematics.
The list could go on and on. The key point to be understood here is that proof
is central to what modern mathematics is about, and what makes it reliable and
reproducible. No other science depends on proof, and therefore no other science has
the bulletproof solidity of mathematics. But mathematics is applied in a variety of
ways, in a vast panorama of disciplines. And the applications are many and varied.
Other disciplines often like to reduce their theories to mathematics— or at least
explain them in mathematical terms—because it gives the subject a certain elegance
and solidity. And it looks really sophisticated. Such efforts meet with varying success.

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The History of Mathematical Proof
In point of fact the history of the proof concept is rather inchoate. It is unclear
just when mathematicians and philosophers conceived of the notion that
mathematical assertions required justification. This was quite a new idea. Then it was
another considerable leap to devise methods for constructing such a justification. In
the present section we shall outline what little is known about the development of
the proof concept.
Perhaps the first mathematical ―proof‖ in recorded history is due to the

Babylonians. They seem (along with the Chinese) to have been aware of the
Pythagorean Theorem (discussed in detail below) well before Pythagoras. The
Babylonians had certain diagrams that indicate why the Pythagorean Theorem is true,
and tablets have been found to validate this fact. They also had methods for
calculating Pythagorean triples—that is, triples of integers (or whole numbers) a, b, c
that satisfy a2 + b2 = c2 as in the Pythagorean theorem.

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Lesson 2
 Mathematics and technology: the role of computers
Technology, the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of

human life or, as it is sometimes phrased, to the change and manipulation of the
human environment.
History of technology, the development over time of systematic techniques for

making and doing things. The term technology, a combination of the Greek technē,
―art, craft,‖ with logos, ―word, speech,‖ meant in Greece a discourse on the arts,
both fine and applied. When it first appeared in English in the 17th century, it was
used to mean a discussion of the applied arts only, and gradually these ―arts‖
themselves came to be the object of the designation. By the early 20th century, the
term embraced a growing range of means, processes, and ideas in addition to tools
and machines. By mid-century, technology was defined by such phrases as ―the means
or activity by which man seeks to change or manipulate his environment.‖ Even such
broad definitions have been criticized by observers who point out the increasing
difficulty of distinguishing between scientific inquiry and technological activity.
A highly compressed account of the history of technology such as this one must
adopt a rigorous methodological pattern if it is to do justice to the subject without
grossly distorting it one way or another. The plan followed in the present article is
primarily chronological, tracing the development of technology through phases that
succeed each other in time. Obviously, the division between phases is to a large
extent arbitrary. One factor in the weighting has been the enormous acceleration of
Western technological development in recent centuries; Eastern technology is
considered in this article in the main only as it relates to the development of modern
technology.
Within each chronological phase a standard method has been adopted for
surveying the technological experience and innovations. This begins with a brief
review of the general social conditions of the period under discussion, and then goes
on to consider the dominant materials and sources of power of the period, and their
application to food production, manufacturing industry, building construction,
transport and communications, military technology, and medical technology. In a final
section the sociocultural consequences of technological change in the period are
examined. This framework is modified according to the particular requirements of
every period— discussions of new materials, for instance, occupy a substantial place
in the accounts of earlier phases when new metals were being introduced but are
comparatively unimportant in descriptions of some of the later phases—but the
general pattern is retained throughout. One key factor that does not fit easily into
this pattern is that of the development of tools. It has seemed most convenient to

130
relate these to the study of materials, rather than to any particular application, but it
has not been possible to be completely consistent in this treatment.
Mathematics instruction is among the most explored research area in

education. There have been considerably varied computer applications in instruction
(Hatfield, 1984). The teachers of mathematics are confused with the extensive
amount of suggestions on how to teach mathematics with a computer. Teachers‘
attitudes towards computers vary mostly as a function of teachers‘ age or years in
service. Complete ‗ignorance‘ attitude towards computers still continues, although its
magnitude is weaker compared to past years This attitude is mostly shared by
teachers who had had their training before the start of the computer age who have
the most negative attitudes towards its pedagogical use and who insist on using the
traditional modes of teaching. Second major attitude is not being able to abandon
their traditional habits completely foreseeing its potential for the future of
education. Most prevalent and widening attitude is the realization and acceptance of
the importance of computers for education.
There are three broad categories of the applications of computers in the field
of mathematics education:
• Computer assisted instruction (CAI)
• Student (educational) programming
• General purpose educational tools such as spreadsheets, databases and
computer algebra systems (CAS).
This survey of literature revealed that, this categorization is also a historical

one, although it cannot be said that there were sharp shifts from one movement to
another. Another important note is that the CAI movement is not as popular in the
Europe as it is in United States.
The preparation of tomorrow‘s teachers to use technology is one of the most

important issues facing today‘s teacher education programs (Kaput, 1992; Waits &
Demana, 2000). Appropriate and integrated use of technology impacts every aspect
of mathematics education: what mathematics is taught, how mathematics is taught
and learned, and how mathematics is assessed (National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics [NCTM], 2000). Changes in the mathematics curriculum, including the
use of technology, have been advocated for several years. The Mathematical Sciences
Education Board (MSEB) and the National Research Council maintain that ―the changes
in mathematics brought about by computers and calculators are so profound as to
require readjustment in the balance and approach to virtually every topic in school
mathematics‖ (MSEB, 1990, p. 2). Future mathematics teachers need to be well
versed in the issues and applications of technology.
Technology is a prominent feature of many mathematics classrooms. According

to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 1999), the percentage of public
high school classrooms having access to the Internet jumped from 49% in 1994 to 94%
in 1998. However, the use of computers for instructional purposes still lags behind

131
the integration of technology in the corporate world and is not used as frequently or
effectively as is needed. One way to close the gap and bring mathematics education
into the 21st century is by preparing preservice teachers to utilize instructional tools
such as graphing calculators and computers for their future practice.
 MODULE SUMMARY
In module V, you have learned about the issues and aspects in mathematics. You have
learned the concept of proving and integration of technology in mathematics.
There are three lessons in module I. Lesson 1 focused on the concept of proof or step
in proving.
Lesson 2 deals with the integration of technology in mathematics: role of computer.
Congratulations! You have just studied Module V. Now you are ready to evaluate how
Luck!!!
 SUMMATIVE TEST
1. There are 4 basic proof techniques used in Mathematics. Research the
following and give at least 3 examples each.

SEME 101 History of Mathematics

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DON MARIANO MARCOS MEMORIAL STATE UNIVERSITY

North La Union Campus

[DOCUMENT TITLE] -Module I-

(1st Semester 2020)

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

a. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the historical facts and landmarks

b. show critical and creative thinking in analyzing popular problems involving

c. manifest appreciation for mathematics as a dynamic field through sharing of

Regularly attend the class

Module Assignments - 40%

Midterm/Final Examination - 60%

Module I: The Development of mathematics: ancient period

Module II: The Development of mathematics: a historical overview:

Module III: The Development of mathematics: a historical overview:

Module IV: The Nature of Mathematics

Module V: Issues and Aspects

(n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https://www.mathopenref.com/thales.html

(n.d.). The Birth of Calculus. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from

(n.d). The Nature of Mathematics. Retrieved July 18, 2020 from

Burton, D. M. (2010). The history of mathematics: An introduction (7th ed). McGraw-Hill

Chellani, Y. (n.d.). Pierre de Fermat. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from

Islamic. (2020, February 20). Retrieved July 13, 2020, from

Krieger, M H. (n.d). Some of What Mathematicians Do. Vol. 51

Lahanas, M. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2020, from

Lybarger, C. E. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2020, from

Plofker, K. (2016, November 14). Indian mathematics - The changing structure of

R. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2020, from

Shuttleworth, M. (n.d.). Babylonian Mathematics and Numerals - Developed in Mesopotamia.

The Development of mathematics:

LESSON 1 - Origins of Mathematics:

LESSON 2 - Mathematics of Ancient

LESSON 3 - Islam, Hindu/Arab and

SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module I-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATHEMATICS: ANCIENT PERIOD

This module presents the development of mathematics. It is where your will

After studying the module, you should be able to:

1. discuss the development of mathematics in the ancient period

 DIRECTIONS/ MODULE ORGANIZER

Good luck and happy reading!!!

SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module I-

 THE MAYAN NUMBER SYSTEM

The Mayan civilization had settled in the

The importance of astronomy and

Around 400 C.E. the Maya Indians

There were two numeral systems

SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module I-

The Mayan used a place value

 303 was written as three lines in

SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module I-

EGYPTIAN NUMBER SYSTEM

The Ancient Egyptians

100 = coil of rope

1000 = lotus flower

10,000 = pointing finger

SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module I-

Below are some examples from tomb inscriptions.

77 700 7000 760,000

Addition and Subtraction

SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module I-

SEME 101 – History of Mathematics -Module I-