HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS

• Mathematics in the modern world has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Babylonia.
• Mathematics developed in Greece, simultaneously in China and in India.
• 2000 C.E.  Mathematical challenges of the 21st century announced.
• 1994 C.E.  Andrew Wiles  Proved Fermat’s last theorem.
• Ancient Greek mathematics, with some influence of Hindu mathematics, spread to neighboring countries in the Middle East.
• Mathematics was translated into Arabic and Latin and adopted by western Europe.
• Western education was spread around the world by colonization and trade.
• Mathematics today has been enriched due to the various cultures, civilizations and mathematicians.
• Sumer/Babylonia, around 4000 - 3000 B.C.E, was the birthplace of writing, the wheel, agriculture, and developed the earliest writing system, Cuneiform script, on clay tablets.
• The Egyptians were the first to develop a numerical system based on the number 10 around 3000 B.C.E.
• Major Greek progress in mathematics was from 300 BC to 200 AD.
• Euclid, around 200 B.C.E, wrote the “Elements”, a compilation of theorems and axioms in algebra and geometry, and gained the title, “Father of Geometry”.
• Archimedes, a Greek mathematician, physicist, inventor, and astronomer, derived a range of formulas in Geometry, including the area of circle, volume of sphere, and area of parabola.
• Hipparchus of Nicaea, around 140 B.C.E, was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician, and is considered the founder of trigonometry.
• During the Middle Ages, Hindu mathematical works were translated into Arabic.
• Arabic Algebra and Indian numerals came to Western Europe through Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi.
• Other Arabic scholars cultivated Greek mathematics by translating the works of various mathematicians into Arabic.
• Leonhard Euler was an important mathematician of the 18th century, contributing to graph theory, the Calculation of Variations and Differential Geometry.
• Josep Louie Lagrange contributed to the Theory of Function and of Mechanics and played a key role in the creation of the Metric System of weights and measures.
• John Venn introduced the Venn Diagram in 1874 and it became useful in set theory.
• Claude Wood Shannon, known as the Father of Information theory, laid the theoretical foundation for digital circuits and information theory.
• John Napier and others discovered logarithms.
• Fermat and Pascal began the mathematical study of probability.
• Carl Friedrich Gauss proved the Fundamental theorem of Algebra in 1799 and contributed to number theory, geometry, probability theory, planetary, and the theory of functions.
• Gottfried Leibniz discovered infinitesimal calculus, along with Newton, although they made this discovery alone.
• Rene Descartes invented the Cartesian coordinate system and developed analytic geometry, laying the foundation for the development of calculus.
• Blaise Pascal laid the foundation of the Probability theory along with Fermat and invented the Pascaline, an early mechanical calculator.
• Pierre de Fermat was given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus.
• Benoit Madelbrot developed the Theory of Fractals and Fractal Geometry of Nature in 1982.
• Vander Hoecke was the first to use the + and – symbols in writing algebraic expressions.
• One of the means by which the Hindu-Arabic system of numeration was introduced to Western Europe was through Johannes Widman, a German mathematician, in which the first + and – symbols appeared in his book Mercantile Arithmetic.
• Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci, wrote Liber Abaci, a book filled with arithmetical and algebraic information, around 1202 C.E.
• Geometry was essential for building arches, domes, and vaulted spaces.
• Mathematics has been used throughout history to solve practical problems such as calculating taxes or determining the best route for trade ships.
• Practical geometry played an important role in architectural and engineering projects in ancient Egypt, China, Rome, and the Islamic world.