Algebra History

By Cam Hudgins
  • 3500 BCE

    Sumerian and Babylonians

    1. Sumerian and Babylonian mathematics was based on a sexegesimal, or base 60, numeric system, which could be counted physically using the twelve knuckles on one hand the five fingers on the other hand.
    2. Babylonian numbers used a true place-value system.
  • 3500 BCE

    Sumerian and Babylonians

    1. Sumerian mathematics initially developed largely as a response to bureaucratic needs when their civilization settled and developed agriculture (possibly as early as the 6th millennium BCE) for the measurement of plots of land, the taxation of individuals, etc
    2. Sumerian and Babylonian were perhaps the first people to assign symbols to groups of objects in an attempt to make the description of larger numbers easier.
  • Period: 3500 BCE to 450 BCE

    Prehistoric Maths

    This time consisted of Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese and Indian people.
  • 2700 BCE

    Egyptians

    1. The early egyptians that settled along the nile valley recorded lunar phases and seasons for both religious and agricultural reasons. The egyptians introduced the first numeration system in 2700 BCE.
    2. The egyptians used different symbols for different numbers, they used a heel bone shape as the tens( 10, 20, 30, 40, 50...etc). Although of these discoveries, they still had no concept of place value.
  • 1650 BCE

    Rhind Papyrus

    1. The Rhind Papyrus was a kind of instructions in mathematics , arithmetic and geometry, which was most likely made around 1650 BCE. it gave us demonstrations of how to multiply and divide, also it contained unit fractions, composite and prime numbers, and harmonic.
    2. The Berlin Papyrus showed that the ancient could solve second-order algebraic (quadratic) equation.
  • 565 BCE

    Greek math

    1. Pythagoras’ Theorem (or the Pythagorean Theorem) is one of the best known of all mathematical theorems.
  • Period: 450 BCE to 1200

    Greek Math

    This time consisted of Classical, Hellenistic, Arabic and Hindu maths.
  • 500

    Greek Math

    1. Democritus, most famous for his prescient ideas about atics and geometry in the 5th - 4th Century BCE, and he produced works with titles like "On Numbers", "On Geometrics", "On Tangencies", "On Mapping" and "On Irrationals", although these works have not survived.
    2. Pythagoras was perhaps the first to realize that a complete system of mathematics could be constructed, where geometric elements corresponded with numbers.
  • 500

    Greek Maths

    5 6th Century BCE mathematician Pythagoras of Samos has become synonymous with the birth of Greek mathematics.
    1. Hippocrates of Chios (not to be confused with the great Greek physician Hippocrates of Kos) was one such Greek mathematician who applied himself to these problems during the 5th Century BCE (his contribution to the “squaring the circle” problem is known as the Lune of Hippocrates).
  • 700

    Greek Maths

    1 The ancient Greek numeral system, known as Attic or Herodianic numerals, was fully developed by about 450 BCE, and in regular use possibly as early as the 7th Century BCE. 2 Most of Greek mathematics was based on geometry. 3 Thales, one of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece, who lived on the Ionian coast of Asian Minor in the first half of the 6th Century BCE.
  • Period: 1200 to

    Middle Ages Algebra

    This time consisted of Islamic and European people. The renaissance went on in this time which helped spread math around the world.16 - 18th centuries lasted through this age.
  • 1201

    Middle Age Algebra

    1. From the 4th to 12th Centuries, European knowledge and study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music was limited mainly to Boethius’ translations of some of the works of ancient Greek masters such as Nicomachus and Euclid.
    2. Europe’s first great medieval mathematician was the Italian Leonardo of pisa , better known by his nickname Fibonacci.
  • 1400

    Middle Ages Algebra

    1. The German scholar Regiomontatus was perhaps the most capable mathematician of the 15th Century, his main contribution to mathematics being in the area of trigonometry.
    4.Leonhard Euler was one of the giants of 18th Century mathematics
    1. An important (but largely unknown and underrated) mathematician and scholar of the 14th Century was the Frenchman Nicole Oresme.
  • 1500

    Middle Ages Maths

    1. The French mathematician and engineer Girard Desargues is considered one of the founders of the field of projective geometry.

  • Middle Ages Maths

    1. In the Renaissance Italy of the early 16th Century, Bologna University in particular was famed for its intense public mathematics competitions.
    2. An important figure in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries is an Italian Franciscan friar called Luca Pacioli, who published a book on arithmetic, geometry and book-keeping at the end of the 15th Century which became quite popular for the mathematical puzzles it contained

  • Middle Ages Math

    1. In the wake of the Renaissance, the 17th Century saw an unprecedented explosion of mathematical and scientific ideas across Europe, a period sometimes called the Age of Reason.
    2. Euler is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time in the 18th century

  • Middle Ages Algebra

    1. The invention of the logarithm in the early 17th Century by John Napier (and later improved by Napier and Henry Briggs) contributed to the advance of science, astronomy and mathematics by making some difficult calculations relatively easy.
    2. The logarithm of a number is the exponent when that number is expressed as a power of 10 (or any other base). It is effectively the inverse of exponentiation.

  • Middle Ages Math

    10.
    Euler interests covered almost all aspects of mathematics, from geometry to calculus to trigonometry to algebra to number theory, as well as optics, astronomy, cartography, mechanics, weights and measures and even the theory of music.
    1. Euler even managed to combine several of these together in an amazing feat of mathematical alchemy to produce one of the most beautiful of all mathematics.
  • Period: to

    Modern Maths

    Abstract maths were in this period. 19th and 20th centuries lasted through this time period.

  • Modern Math

    1. Joseph Fourier studied infinite sum at the beginning of the 19th Century.
    2. In 1806, Jean-Robert Argand published his paper on how complex numbers (of the form a + bi, where i is √-1) could be represented on geometric diagrams and manipulated using trigonometry and vectors
    3. The Frenchman Evariste Galois proved in the late 1820s that there is no general algebraic method for solving polynomial equations.

  • Modern Maths

    1. Another 19th Century Englishman, George Peacock, is usually credited with the invention of symbolic algebra, and the extension of the scope of algebra
    2. In the mid-19th Century, the British mathematician George Boole devised an algebra (now called Boolean algebra or Boolean logic)
    3. John von Neumann is considered one of the foremost mathematicians in modern history in the 20th century

  • Modern Maths

    1. Claude Shannon, has become known as the father of information theory
    2. Paul Erdös was another inspired but distinctly non-establishment figure of 20th Century mathematics.
    3. The Soviet mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov is usually credited with laying the modern axiomatic foundations of probability theory in the 1930s.
    4. 1976 saw a proof of the four colour theorem by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken

  • Fathers of math

    Archimedes (c.287-212 B.C.) introduced the concept of place value systems in mathematics Euclid (c. 300 B.C.)enters history as one of the greatest of all mathematicians and he is often referred to as the father of geometry. Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was one of the first to write about algebra (using words, not letters). Pythagoras (c. 580 - 500 B.C.)
    Though not much is known of this mysterious man, it is almost certain that mathematics began with him.

  • Resource Page

    Links: storyofmathematics.com Geomhistory.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra
    https://www.livescience.com/50258-algebra.html
    https://www.algebra.com/algebra/about/history/