Amazing Traces of a Babylonian Origin in Greek Mathematics

Amazing Traces of a Babylonian Origin in Greek Mathematics
Author: J”ran Friberg
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2007
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9812704523

The sequel to Unexpected Links Between Egyptian and Babylonian Mathematics (World Scientific, 2005), this book is based on the author's intensive and ground breaking studies of the long history of Mesopotamian mathematics, from the late 4th to the late 1st millennium BC. It is argued in the book that several of the most famous Greek mathematicians appear to have been familiar with various aspects of Babylonian “metric algebra,” a convenient name for an elaborate combination of geometry, metrology, and quadratic equations that is known from both Babylonian and pre-Babylonian mathematical clay tablets. The book's use of “metric algebra diagrams” in the Babylonian style, where the side lengths and areas of geometric figures are explicitly indicated, instead of wholly abstract “lettered diagrams” in the Greek style, is essential for an improved understanding of many interesting propositions and constructions in Greek mathematical works. The author's comparisons with Babylonian mathematics also lead to new answers to some important open questions in the history of Greek mathematics.

A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts

A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts
Author: Jöran Friberg
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2007-07-31
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0387345434

The book analyzes the mathematical tablets from the private collection of Martin Schoyen. It includes analyses of tablets which have never been studied before. This provides new insight into Babylonian understanding of sophisticated mathematical objects. The book is carefully written and organized. The tablets are classified according to mathematical content and purpose, while drawings and pictures are provided for the most interesting tablets.

Unexpected Links Between Egyptian and Babylonian Mathematics

Unexpected Links Between Egyptian and Babylonian Mathematics
Author: J”ran Friberg
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2005
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9812701125

Mesopotamian mathematics is known from a great number of cuneiform texts, most of them Old Babylonian, some Late Babylonian or pre-Old-Babylonian, and has been intensively studied during the last couple of decades. In contrast to this Egyptian mathematics is known from only a small number of papyrus texts, and the few books and papers that have been written about Egyptian mathematical papyri have mostly reiterated the same old presentations and interpretations of the texts. In this book, it is shown that the methods developed by the author for the close study of mathematical cuneiform texts can also be successfully applied to all kinds of Egyptian mathematical texts, hieratic, demotic, or Greek-Egyptian. At the same time, comparisons of a large number of individual Egyptian mathematical exercises with Babylonian parallels yield many new insights into the nature of Egyptian mathematics and show that Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics display greater similarities than expected.

New Mathematical Cuneiform Texts

New Mathematical Cuneiform Texts
Author: Jöran Friberg
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 566
Release: 2017-02-13
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3319445979

This monograph presents in great detail a large number of both unpublished and previously published Babylonian mathematical texts in the cuneiform script. It is a continuation of the work A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts (Springer 2007) written by Jöran Friberg, the leading expert on Babylonian mathematics. Focussing on the big picture, Friberg explores in this book several Late Babylonian arithmetical and metro-mathematical table texts from the sites of Babylon, Uruk and Sippar, collections of mathematical exercises from four Old Babylonian sites, as well as a new text from Early Dynastic/Early Sargonic Umma, which is the oldest known collection of mathematical exercises. A table of reciprocals from the end of the third millennium BC, differing radically from well-documented but younger tables of reciprocals from the Neo-Sumerian and Old-Babylonian periods, as well as a fragment of a Neo-Sumerian clay tablet showing a new type of a labyrinth are also discussed. The material is presented in the form of photos, hand copies, transliterations and translations, accompanied by exhaustive explanations. The previously unpublished mathematical cuneiform texts presented in this book were discovered by Farouk Al-Rawi, who also made numerous beautiful hand copies of most of the clay tablets. Historians of mathematics and the Mesopotamian civilization, linguists and those interested in ancient labyrinths will find New Mathematical Cuneiform Texts particularly valuable. The book contains many texts of previously unknown types and material that is not available elsewhere.

Revolutions and Continuity in Greek Mathematics

Revolutions and Continuity in Greek Mathematics
Author: Michalis Sialaros
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2018-04-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110565951

This volume brings together a number of leading scholars working in the field of ancient Greek mathematics to present their latest research. In their respective area of specialization, all contributors offer stimulating approaches to questions of historical and historiographical ‘revolutions’ and ‘continuity’. Taken together, they provide a powerful lens for evaluating the applicability of Thomas Kuhn’s ideas on ‘scientific revolutions’ to the discipline of ancient Greek mathematics. Besides the latest historiographical studies on ‘geometrical algebra’ and ‘premodern algebra’, the reader will find here some papers which offer new insights into the controversial relationship between Greek and pre-Hellenic mathematical practices. Some other contributions place emphasis on the other edge of the historical spectrum, by exploring historical lines of ‘continuity’ between ancient Greek, Byzantine and post-Hellenic mathematics. The terminology employed by Greek mathematicians, along with various non-textual and material elements, is another topic which some of the essays in the volume explore. Finally, the last three articles focus on a traditionally rich source on ancient Greek mathematics; namely the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Between Greece and Babylonia

Between Greece and Babylonia
Author: Kathryn Stevens
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108419550

Focusing on Greece and Babylonia, this book provides a new, cross-cultural approach to the intellectual history of the Hellenistic world.

Indian Mathematics: Engaging With The World From Ancient To Modern Times

Indian Mathematics: Engaging With The World From Ancient To Modern Times
Author: George Gheverghese Joseph
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 510
Release: 2016-07-28
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1786340631

Indian Mathematics gives a unique insight into the history of mathematics within a historical global context. It builds on research into the connection between mathematics and the world-wide advancement of economics and technology. Joseph draws out parallel developments in other cultures and carefully examines the transmission of mathematical ideas across geographical and cultural borders.Accessible to those who have an interest in the global history of mathematical ideas, for the historians, philosophers and sociologists of mathematics, it is a book not to be missed.

The Crest of the Peacock

The Crest of the Peacock
Author: George Gheverghese Joseph
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 593
Release: 2011
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0691135266

The contents of this book cover the history of mathematics, the beginnings of written mathematics, Egyptian and Mesopotamian mathematics, special topics in Chinese mathematics, and much more.

Beyond the Learned Academy

Beyond the Learned Academy
Author: Philip Beeley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2024-01-05
Genre:
ISBN: 0198863950

Comprising fifteen essays by leading authorities in the history of mathematics, this volume aims to exemplify the richness, diversity, and breadth of mathematical practice from the seventeenth century through to the middle of the nineteenth century.