Highlight: 'About 1950BC
Babylonians solve quadratic equations.'
Mathematical Chronology
11–20 of 58 posts
Re: Mathematical Chronology
#12Fascinating. Nitpick: It would be even nicer if the images on the main page were annotated with the person's name. I recognized e.g. Einstein and Turing, but who are all the others?
You can try this link:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Miscellaneous/bg_pic...
Re: Mathematical Chronology
#13It doesn't seem to mention the works of the Indian mathematicians from Kerala, India on calculus. I think their work predated that of Newton and Leibniz.
Interesting, but (wiki):
> Their work, completed two centuries before the invention of calculus in Europe, provided what is now considered the first example of a power series (apart from geometric series).[2] However, they did not formulate a systematic theory of differentiation and integration, nor is there any direct evidence of their results being transmitted outside Kerala.
Re: Mathematical Chronology
#14There is a network of artificial tunnels in Egypt called the Serapeum of Saqqara. It contains at least 24 large boxes made from single pieces of solid granite, allegedly moved there from a very interesting granite quarry several hundred miles away, then hollowed out to a mirror finish and a precision of a few ten-thousandths of an inch as tested by a precision machinist with a precision toolmaker's square who is also an engineer. After observing them, the engineer went on to ask the largest US companies in such business if they could make one. Only one responded and the answer was interesting. The place is real and the boxes, some as much as 90 tons (or the weight of more than fifty Prius cars) are not going anywhere. It's not in the books, nor is anything that explains it in the timeline but you can see it in person and test if for yourself. This place is only one of many that, by their nature and existence, question the conventional timeline of history
There is also a mathematician that, with some help from others, is doing a rigorous mathematical review of the conventional timeline of history and apparently there are some major problems with what has previously been accepted, written and taught. Does anyone know who I am referring to here?
How many people here are aware of the Serapeum mentioned above? Where does that level of precision work fit in with the timeline?
Re: Mathematical Chronology
#15A guy I knew used to say that this is why computer science is so much easier to learn than number theory. It's thousands of years of number theory to learn vs a few dozen years of computer science. On top of that, the recent historical explosion of computer science is also accompanied by perhaps an even larger explosion of number theory.
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Re: Mathematical Chronology
#16A guy I knew used to say that this is why computer science is so much easier to learn than number theory. It's thousands of years of number theory to learn vs a few dozen years of computer science. On top of that, the recent historical explosion of computer science is also accompanied by perhaps an even larger explosion of number theory.
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Re: Mathematical Chronology
#17There is a network of artificial tunnels in Egypt called the Serapeum of Saqqara. It contains at least 24 large boxes made from single pieces of solid granite, allegedly moved there from a very interesting granite quarry several hundred miles away, then hollowed out to a mirror finish and a precision of a few ten-thousandths of an inch as tested by a precision machinist with a precision toolmaker's square who is also…
The qualities of the Saqqara boxes are entirely consistent with what we know about the mathematical and engineering sophistication of ancient Egyptians. There is nothing well-verified "not in the books" that upends the "conventional timeline". The only people claiming otherwise are Discovery Channel nutcase types who want you to believe, without real evidence, often with fake evidence, and always with fatuous reasoning, that angels and aliens intervened in ancient human history.
https://nathandickey.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/demythologizin...
Re: Mathematical Chronology
#18Wondering how much from the last 100 years has been left out
Probably a huge amount given that ~50% of the mathematicians* who have ever been alive are alive today. Source: Pure Mathematics Hons BSc, St Andrews - I took the St Andrews "History of Mathematics" course this site's information is used in. *For a given value of 'mathematician'. And 'alive', I guess.
Nice to see another St Andrews person on HN - I took that course too! I only wrote two essays during my four year degree, one for this class! (I wrote about Alexander Aitken, a gifted mental arithmetician)
Re: Mathematical Chronology
#19It would be good to include the setbacks caused by religious intervention.
You can find some of it here in this other timeline: http://superstringtheory.com/history/history1.html
e.g: Hypatia, Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus... and many more.
Re: Mathematical Chronology
#20Please anyone, what is best timeline metaphor you know of?
This is great stuff, but I immediately want to interactively browse through the information. For different parts be able to dive deeper, see high level views, different categories, taxonomies, links to related topics.
Not trying to reinvent Wikipedia or hypermedia. But specifically to timelines with a lot of density, it seems there ought to be some nice user interface that could be leveraged for these scenarios.