The Crest of the Peacock

 The first thing that I find surprising is not a particular point the author made or any events that he mentions. It is the fact there is a discourse around how mathematics has been undergoing a Eurocentric trajectory. Recalling my experience as a high school student leaning mathematics, it never came to my attention that different area of mathematics has its roots. In my undergraduate days, although the origin of different mathematics did came up of which many times where the involvement of the Greek came up. However, never have I ever thought about how Europe has dominated the perception of different roots of Mathematics.

 

 

It is amazing by itself how present scholars study the transition of Mathematics knowledge thousands of years ago. It is even more surprising (and amazing) how mathematicians had the dedication to transmit/share mathematics knowledge across continent. Not to mention it was back in the zero technology days. One example of such dedication is the amount of travel Pythagoras did to learning and to share. Looking at figure 1.4 in the reading, it is unbelievable how mathematics ideas had influenced one another through time and space.

 

The third surprising thing I read was how religion opened up a gateway for transmission and sharing of scientific and Mathematics knowledge. The specific example the book gave was the spread of Buddhism into China, then ended up with cooperation in different academic exchanges such as astronomy. It would be interesting to know if there are other cultural exchanges between countries that might have resulted in transmission of knowledge..

Comments

  1. Amanda FritzlanSeptember 21, 2022 at 11:14 AM

    Duncan, Thank you for sharing your own experiences as a student. I agree that there is generally a gap in learning about diverse historical roots of mathematics in our present day schooling, at least here in Canada. It is eye-opening and especially that historians have mapped this transmission of mathematical knowledge over close to 5000 years. I hope that you follow your curiosity about other cultural exchanges between countries. Belief systems play a big part in the development of mathematical thinking. Good blog post!

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