Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#181

Post by roboys » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #141

roboys wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dark ages also saw a huge disparity in education between the East and the West. Until the 15th century less than 5 people in Europe could do long division. For comparison, Aryabhatta discovered calculus in 5th century India and Madhava made large contributions in the 13th century (Newton/Leibniz were wrongly credited for similar work many years later).

> Until the 15th century less than 5 people in Europe could do long division. That’s wildly inaccurate. Arithmetic was very much a subject at several schools with the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division all being taught. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium Long division being difficult in Roman numerals is one of the reasons for the switch.

>That’s wildly inaccurate. Arithmetic was very much a subject at several schools...

I'm talking specifically about "long division" in Europe... and have heard this factoid from multiple mathematicians including Nasim Taleb. So I expect there is a basis for the claim...

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#182

Post by Retric » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

roboys wrote: post #181

Retric wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until the 15th century less than 5 people in Europe could do long division. That’s wildly inaccurate. Arithmetic was very much a subject at several schools with the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division all being taught. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium Long division being difficult in Roman numerals is one of the reasons for the switch.

>That’s wildly inaccurate. Arithmetic was very much a subject at several schools... I'm talking specifically about "long division" in Europe... and have heard this factoid from multiple mathematicians including Nasim Taleb. So I expect there is a basis for the claim...

Let’s be clear, if you mean the modern notation, that was was ‘invented’ after the dark ages. So under that definition it’s ~0 people world wide in the dark ages. Excluding independent discovery.

However, if we are talking about the number of people being able to accurately do 1234 / 56 = 22 r 2. That was regularly taught in the Middle Ages with plenty of examples of such calculations being available.

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#183

Post by 29athrowaway » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

Bayart wrote: post #145

29athrowaway wrote: post #125

Paper makes you productive. Romans did not have it. They had papyrus, parchments and wax tablets, none of them were as convenient or affordable as paper. The adoption of paper was what really set things in motion in Europe, the Renaissance.

>They had papyrus, parchments and wax tablets, none of them were as convenient or affordable as paper. Papyrus is cheap, easy to make and affordable. It would certainly have been much cheaper than paper, which didn't become any good until substantial industrial and chemical advancements. It was used all over the place. We don't have much left from the Northern Mediterranean because it rots . Wax tablets were used unt…

Paper is thin, light, durable... you can make books from it and transport them easily. It can be manufactured from materials available in abundance in Europe.

A book made of wax tablets, or velum is not as good. I don't imagine vast libraries and universities running on books made of wax tablets or velum.

With respect to Papyrus, I agree. The Great Library of Alexandria was all papyrus. It can be produced at scale. But Europeans had to import it from far, far away.

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#184

Post by notinpersia » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

Keysh wrote: post #118

notinpersia wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Muslim Persian, and Baghdad was the melting pot of the world at that time. It’s like saying a German physicist in Princeton, NJ, which is to say that America not Germany was the place where the work was valued and promoted. Likewise, Alkhawarizmi was educated in Baghdad (not in Persia) and wrote his book on Algebra in Arabic. He was not educated in Persia and he did not write his book in Farsi. If we put ethnicity…

No, Baghdad was located in the heart of the former Persian (Sassanian) Empire, a mere 35 km from the site of the Sassanian capital (Ctesiphon). Although the whole area gradually became Arabized, at the time it was still significantly Persian. (Frankly, I doubt we know where Al-Khwarizmi was educated. We know he was originally from what's now Uzbekistan, and that he ended up in Baghdad, but not much more than that.)

He wrote his treatise on Algebra in Arabic because he was educated in Arabic and the language of science was Arabic in that area and at that time. AlNassirya in Baghdad was the most advanced educational institution in the world at the time. I don’t know if he was a student or teacher there but it also has an Arabic name and was built by an Islamic caliph. The same with mathematicians from India traveling all the way to Baghdad to tell the caliph about their invention of zero. Persians has many amazing contributions to science and math but Persia itself has none. Like the Romans, they were war mongers and Their culture was toxic to science.

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#185

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #135

29athrowaway wrote: post #125

Paper makes you productive. Romans did not have it. They had papyrus, parchments and wax tablets, none of them were as convenient or affordable as paper. The adoption of paper was what really set things in motion in Europe, the Renaissance.

Paper - yet another Chinese invention, about 100AD, along with movable type printing, about 1000AD. With gunpowder and compass, two more Chinese inventions, Europeans navigated and conquered the world..

[deleted]

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#186

Post by 29athrowaway » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #135

29athrowaway wrote: post #125

Paper makes you productive. Romans did not have it. They had papyrus, parchments and wax tablets, none of them were as convenient or affordable as paper. The adoption of paper was what really set things in motion in Europe, the Renaissance.

Paper - yet another Chinese invention, about 100AD, along with movable type printing, about 1000AD. With gunpowder and compass, two more Chinese inventions, Europeans navigated and conquered the world..

And technology and animals from the fertile crescent, efficient crops from the Americas, African slaves and significant military help from local groups.

A lot of merit to share.

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#187

Post by chrisco255 » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #164

chrisco255 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China#/media/File:T... Watch that graphic to see the evolution of the extent of "China" since the Zhou Dynasty in 1000 BC. It occupies a fraction of the current extent of China. So there were lots of wars, and lots of revolutions before modern Chinese borders were established. I get that Chinese have had more cultural and language cohesion, but that's at least partially becaus…

And a nearly comparable (and orchestrated!) time-lapse evolutionary map of Europe, though extending back to only 400 BCE: https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=UY9P0QSxlnI Note that China was under a largely single and unified set of linguistic, cultural, and political organisation throughout the entire 3,000 year period you depict. The "modern" map of Europe has changed dramatically just in the past 30 years, let alone the…

Oh, sure, I'm not arguing that Europe was less tumultuous than China. There were many, many schisms, and wars however. Had some of these civil wars or invasions from Mongolia, Japan, etc within China had gone a different way, they could have ended up as fractured as ancient Rome.

Here's a few hundred wars that occurred during the past couple millennia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_wars_and_battl...

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#188

Post by boomboomsubban » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

kgwgk wrote: post #168

boomboomsubban wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first map shows roughly thirteen million people in non-Italy "Western Europe" and roughly twenty two millions in the non Western Europe parts. Wikipedia has an actual population density map[1] that highlights my point. Even in traditional "Western Europe," the population is predominantly Mediterranean. It also has a list of the most populous cities during the peak of the Empire, largely outside of Western Europe.…

So about half the roman empire (including Italy) was in Western Europe? Of course the Roman Empire extended further (and longer in other regions), but saying Middle Age's Western Europe doesn't include large regions that were previously part of the Roman Empire seems strange to me.

>but saying Middle Age's Western Europe doesn't include large regions that were previously part of the Roman Empire seems strange to me.

No one said that. The Roman Empire isn't Western Europe, and calling the period the "Dark Ages" is inaccurate.

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#189

Post by kgwgk » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #188

kgwgk wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So about half the roman empire (including Italy) was in Western Europe? Of course the Roman Empire extended further (and longer in other regions), but saying Middle Age's Western Europe doesn't include large regions that were previously part of the Roman Empire seems strange to me.

>but saying Middle Age's Western Europe doesn't include large regions that were previously part of the Roman Empire seems strange to me. No one said that. The Roman Empire isn't Western Europe, and calling the period the "Dark Ages" is inaccurate.

Novacole said “Rome isn’t Western Europe. So western Europe’s entire history is a “dark age” before the Age of Enlightenment.”

That seems to imply that Rome isn’t part of the history of Western Europe at all (and neither did the Renaissance happen in Western Europe, apparently).

Re: Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

#190

Post by torben-friis » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 11:50 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #175

torben-friis wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even written language in China is still largely intelligible to moderns, from a thousand years ago or more. English, more than about 400 years ago is almost wholly foreign: You're pretty much equating English and Europe when talking about language, which in this case is very wrong. I, as a spaniard, can read poetry from a thousand years ago perfectly fine, and we do indeed do it in school.

In 1000 CE, the principle language of Spain was Arabic. Though Spanish, Castillian, etc., were spoken. Well, back until 210 CE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Spanish_languag...

Spanish (or the dozens of romance languages and dialects that would eventually converge to it, anyway) predated Arabic in the peninsula, and survived it. As a consequence, we study arabic presence as an invasion/influence that came and left, rather than "what our culture was" at the time - whether that's fair or not is an entirely different topic, but the point is that I can perfectly read the literature made in romance languages since it hasn't changed that much. Even latin would be somewhat understandable.