Mathematics Across Cultures

Mathematics Across Cultures
Title Mathematics Across Cultures PDF eBook
Author Helaine Selin
Publisher Springer Science & Business Media
Pages 489
Release 2012-12-06
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 9401143013

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Mathematics Across Cultures: A History of Non-Western Mathematics consists of essays dealing with the mathematical knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Inca, Egyptian, and African mathematics, among others, the book includes essays on Rationality, Logic and Mathematics, and the transfer of knowledge from East to West. The essays address the connections between science and culture and relate the mathematical practices to the cultures which produced them. Each essay is well illustrated and contains an extensive bibliography. Because the geographic range is global, the book fills a gap in both the history of science and in cultural studies. It should find a place on the bookshelves of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars, as well as in libraries serving those groups.

Mathematics Elsewhere

Mathematics Elsewhere
Title Mathematics Elsewhere PDF eBook
Author Marcia Ascher
Publisher Princeton University Press
Pages 220
Release 2018-06-05
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 0691187649

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Mathematics Elsewhere is a fascinating and important contribution to a global view of mathematics. Presenting mathematical ideas of peoples from a variety of small-scale and traditional cultures, it humanizes our view of mathematics and expands our conception of what is mathematical. Through engaging examples of how particular societies structure time, reach decisions about the future, make models and maps, systematize relationships, and create intriguing figures, Marcia Ascher demonstrates that traditional cultures have mathematical ideas that are far more substantial and sophisticated than is generally acknowledged. Malagasy divination rituals, for example, rely on complex algebraic algorithms. And some cultures use calendars far more abstract and elegant than our own. Ascher also shows that certain concepts assumed to be universal--that time is a single progression, for instance, or that equality is a static relationship--are not. The Basque notion of equivalence, for example, is a dynamic and temporal one not adequately captured by the familiar equal sign. Other ideas taken to be the exclusive province of professionally trained Western mathematicians are, in fact, shared by people in many societies. The ideas discussed come from geographically varied cultures, including the Borana and Malagasy of Africa, the Tongans and Marshall Islanders of Oceania, the Tamil of South India, the Basques of Western Europe, and the Balinese and Kodi of Indonesia. This book belongs on the shelves of mathematicians, math students, and math educators, and in the hands of anyone interested in traditional societies or how people think. Illustrating how mathematical ideas play a vital role in diverse human endeavors from navigation to social interaction to religion, it offers--through the vehicle of mathematics--unique cultural encounters to any reader.

Cultural Foundations of Mathematics

Cultural Foundations of Mathematics
Title Cultural Foundations of Mathematics PDF eBook
Author C. K. Raju
Publisher Pearson Education India
Pages 536
Release 2007
Genre Calculus
ISBN 9788131708712

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The Volume Examines, In Depth, The Implications Of Indian History And Philosophy For Contemporary Mathematics And Science. The Conclusions Challenge Current Formal Mathematics And Its Basis In The Western Dogma That Deduction Is Infallible (Or That It Is Less Fallible Than Induction). The Development Of The Calculus In India, Over A Thousand Years, Is Exhaustively Documented In This Volume, Along With Novel Insights, And Is Related To The Key Sources Of Wealth-Monsoon-Dependent Agriculture And Navigation Required For Overseas Trade - And The Corresponding Requirement Of Timekeeping. Refecting The Usual Double Standard Of Evidence Used To Construct Eurocentric History, A Single, New Standard Of Evidence For Transmissions Is Proposed. Using This, It Is Pointed Out That Jesuits In Cochin, Following The Toledo Model Of Translation, Had Long-Term Opportunity To Transmit Indian Calculus Texts To Europe. The European Navigational Problem Of Determining Latitude, Longitude, And Loxodromes, And The 1582 Gregorian Calendar-Reform, Provided Ample Motivation. The Mathematics In These Earlier Indian Texts Suddenly Starts Appearing In European Works From The Mid-16Th Century Onwards, Providing Compelling Circumstantial Evidence. While The Calculus In India Had Valid Pramana, This Differed From Western Notions Of Proof, And The Indian (Algorismus) Notion Of Number Differed From The European (Abacus) Notion. Hence, Like Their Earlier Difficulties With The Algorismus, Europeans Had Difficulties In Understanding The Calculus, Which, Like Computer Technology, Enhanced The Ability To Calculate, Albeit In A Way Regarded As Epistemologically Insecure. Present-Day Difficulties In Learning Mathematics Are Related, Via Phylogeny Is Ontogeny , To These Historical Difficulties In Assimilating Imported Mathematics. An Appendix Takes Up Further Contemporary Implications Of The New Philosophy Of Mathematics For The Extension Of The Calculus, Which Is Needed To Handle The Infinities Arising In The Study Of Shock Waves And The Renormalization Problem Of Quantum Field Theory.

Mathematics in Western Culture

Mathematics in Western Culture
Title Mathematics in Western Culture PDF eBook
Author Morris Kline
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 513
Release 1964-12-31
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 0195345452

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This book gives a remarkably fine account of the influences mathematics has exerted on the development of philosophy, the physical sciences, religion, and the arts in Western life.

Mathematics in Popular Culture

Mathematics in Popular Culture
Title Mathematics in Popular Culture PDF eBook
Author Jessica K. Sklar
Publisher McFarland
Pages 355
Release 2014-01-10
Genre Social Science
ISBN 0786489944

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Mathematics has maintained a surprising presence in popular media for over a century. In recent years, the movies Good Will Hunting, A Beautiful Mind, and Stand and Deliver, the stage plays Breaking the Code and Proof, the novella Flatland and the hugely successful television crime series NUMB3RS all weave mathematics prominently into their storylines. Less obvious but pivotal references to the subject appear in the blockbuster TV show Lost, the cult movie The Princess Bride, and even Tolstoy's War and Peace. In this collection of new essays, contributors consider the role of math in everything from films, baseball, crossword puzzles, fantasy role-playing games, and television shows to science fiction tales, award-winning plays and classic works of literature. Revealing the broad range of intersections between mathematics and mainstream culture, this collection demonstrates that even "mass entertainment" can have a hidden depth.

Multicultural Mathematics

Multicultural Mathematics
Title Multicultural Mathematics PDF eBook
Author Claudia Zaslavsky
Publisher Walch Publishing
Pages 164
Release 1993
Genre Education
ISBN 9780825121814

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58 activities to supplement and enrich the regular mathematics curriculum.

The Development of Mathematics Throughout the Centuries

The Development of Mathematics Throughout the Centuries
Title The Development of Mathematics Throughout the Centuries PDF eBook
Author Brian Evans
Publisher John Wiley & Sons
Pages 197
Release 2014-02-24
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 1118853970

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Throughout the book, readers take a journey throughout time and observe how people around the world have understood these patterns of quantity, structure, and dimension around them. The Development of Mathematics Throughout the Centuries: A Brief History in a Cultural Contex provides a brief overview of the history of mathematics in a very straightforward and understandable manner and also addresses major findings that influenced the development of mathematics as a coherent discipline. This book: Highlights the contributions made by various world cultures including African, Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and pre-Columbian American mathematics Features an approach that is not too rigorous and is ideal for a one-semester course of the history of mathematics. Includes a Resources and Recommended Reading section for further exploration and has been extensively classroom-tested