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📚 THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
🏺 1. ANCIENT MATHEMATICS (Before 500 BCE)
🧱 Mesopotamia (Babylonians and Sumerians)
• Around 3000 BCE, in present-day Iraq.
• Used a base-60 (sexagesimal) system — that’s why we have 60 seconds in a minute!
• Solved quadratic equations, used geometry, and created tables for multiplication and
square roots.
🧮 Ancient Egypt
• Used math for pyramids, land surveying, and calendar-making.
• Had basic arithmetic and geometry.
• Used unit fractions like ½, ⅓, ¼, etc.
• Famous text: Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (~1650 BCE).
Ancient India
• Early texts like the Sulba Sutras (800 BCE) dealt with geometry for altar building.
• Concepts of zero, place value, and even infinity began to emerge later.
🏺 Ancient China
• “Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art” (~200 BCE): solved equations, used negative
numbers.
• Developed magic squares, early algebra, and used abacus.
Ancient Greece (600–300 BCE)
• Pythagoras (Pythagorean theorem).
• Euclid – “Father of Geometry,” wrote Elements, a key math book for 2,000 years.
• Archimedes – calculated π (pi), developed calculus-like ideas.
• Greek math was more logical and proof-based, unlike earlier practical math.
🏰 2. CLASSICAL & ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE (500–1500 CE)
Late Greek / Roman Period
• Ptolemy applied math in astronomy.
• Romans focused more on engineering than theoretical math.
🌙 Islamic Golden Age (750–1200 CE)
• Scholars translated Greek, Indian, and Babylonian math into Arabic.
• Al-Khwarizmi – “Father of Algebra.” His name gives us the word algorithm.
• Introduced Hindu-Arabic numeral system (0–9) to the West.
• Developed trigonometry and improved geometry.
• Major centers: Baghdad, Cordoba, Cairo.
🏰 3. MEDIEVAL EUROPE (500–1500 CE)
• Math progress slowed during early medieval times.
• Reintroduced to Europe through Islamic texts in Arabic, later translated to Latin.
• Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa) introduced the Fibonacci sequence and Hindu-Arabic
numerals in 1202.
🧠 4. RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT (1500–1800)
• Europe experiences a math revival.
Key Figures:
• René Descartes – Created Cartesian coordinates (linking algebra and geometry).
• Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz – Independently developed calculus.
• Blaise Pascal – Developed probability theory and Pascal’s Triangle.
• John Napier – Invented logarithms.
🧪 5. MODERN MATHEMATICS (1800–Present)
1800s:
• Carl Friedrich Gauss – Number theory, complex numbers, and modular arithmetic.
• George Boole – Boolean algebra (foundation of computer science).
• Niels Abel & Évariste Galois – Group theory (early abstract algebra).
• Math becomes more abstract: set theory, infinity, topology.
1900s:
• David Hilbert – Proposed 23 unsolved problems to guide 20th-century math.
• Kurt Gödel – Proved that some mathematical truths can’t be proven (incompleteness
theorems).
• Alan Turing – Laid the groundwork for computers and AI.
• Rise of applied math: statistics, coding theory, cryptography, and mathematical
modeling.
2000s:
• Math + Technology: used in AI, simulations, internet encryption, climate modeling,
finance, etc.
• Solved famous problems like Fermat’s Last Theorem (by Andrew Wiles in 1994).
• Still open: the Riemann Hypothesis, Navier-Stokes equations, and others (Millennium
Prize Problems).
🧠 IMPORTANT MATH CONCEPTS DEVELOPED THROUGH HISTORY
Concept Civilization / PersonNotes
Zero India (Brahmagupta) Around 700 CE
Algebra Al-Khwarizmi (Islamic) Gave us the word “algebra”
Geometry Euclid (Greece) Elements defined the system
Calculus Newton & Leibniz (1600s) Change and motion
Trigonometry Islamic & Greek mathematicians Sine, cosine, tangent
Probability Pascal, Fermat Gambling problems!
Boolean Logic George Boole (1800s) Basis of computing
Statistics Developed across 1700s–1900s Data analysis, sampling
Set Theory Georg Cantor (1800s) Infinity explored formally
TIMELINE SUMMARY
Time Period Major Highlights
3000 BCE Math in Egypt & Mesopotamia
600–300 BCE Greek mathematics (Euclid, Pythagoras)
800 CE Zero and decimal system in India
800–1200 CE Islamic Golden Age – Algebra, numerals
1202 CE Fibonacci introduces Arabic numerals to Europe
1600s Descartes (geometry), Newton & Leibniz (calculus)
1800s Abstract math, logic, probability
1900s Computers, Gödel, applied math
2000s–Today Math in AI, data science, physics
