Math Across the Ages

By elmash
  • Hypatia writes commentaries on Diophantus and Apollonius
    400

    Hypatia writes commentaries on Diophantus and Apollonius

    Hypatia is the first recorded female mathematician and she distinguishes herself with remarkable scholarship. She becomes head of the Neo-Platonist school at Alexandria.
  • Bhaskara is born
    May 15, 1114

    Bhaskara is born

    Bhaskara's work on calculus predates that of Newton and Leibniz
  • Fibonacci writes Liber Abaci (The Book of the Abacus)
    May 15, 1202

    Fibonacci writes Liber Abaci (The Book of the Abacus)

    Liber Abaci sets out the arithmetic and algebra Fibonacci had learned in Arab countries. It also introduces the famous sequence of numbers now called the "Fibonacci sequence".
  • Leone Battista Alberti publishes Della Pictura
    May 15, 1434

    Leone Battista Alberti publishes Della Pictura

    Della Pictura is the first general treatise on the laws of perspective.
  • Tartaglia discovers how to solve cubic equations
    May 15, 1535

    Tartaglia discovers how to solve cubic equations

    Although Tartaglia could solve cubic equations, he did not share his methods with anyone.
  • Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
    May 15, 1543

    Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium

    (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres) This work gives a full account of the Copernican theory, namely that the Sun (not the Earth) is at rest in the center of the Universe.
  • René Descartes is born

    René Descartes is born

    René Descartes developed analytic geometry.
  • Pierre de Fermat is born

    Pierre de Fermat is born

    Pierre de Fermat was possibly the world's finest mathematical amateur.
  • Schickard makes a "mechanical clock"

    Schickard makes a "mechanical clock"

    This "mechanical clock" was a wooden calculating machine that could add, subtract, and aid with multiplication and division. He wrote to Kepler suggesting the use of mechanical means to calculate ephemeredes.
  • Fermat's Last Theorem is formulated

    Fermat's Last Theorem is formulated

    Fermat left no details of his proof since the margin in which he wrote it is too small. This theorem states that the equation xn + yn = zn has no non-zero solutions for x, y and z when n > 2.
  • Leibniz demonstrates his incomplete calculating machine to the Royal Society

    Leibniz demonstrates his incomplete calculating machine to the Royal Society

    This calculating machine can multiply, divide and extract roots.
  • Jacob Bernoulli uses the word "integral" for the first time to refer to the area under a curve.

    Jacob Bernoulli uses the word "integral" for the first time to refer to the area under a curve.

    Jacob Bernoulli was a member of the great Bernoulli family of mathematicians in Basel, Switzerland.
  • Leonhard Euler is born

    Leonhard Euler is born

    Euler was a Swiss mathematician who made enormous contibutions to a wide range of mathematics and physics including analytic geometry, trigonometry, geometry, calculus and number theory.
  • Euler introduces the notation f(x)

    Euler introduces the notation f(x)

    f(x) stands for "the function of x."
  • Leonhard Euler publishes "Elements of Algebra"

    Leonhard Euler publishes "Elements of Algebra"

    "Elements of Algebra" was one of the first books to set out algebra in the modern form that we recognize today.
  • Jakob Steiner develops synthetic geometry

    Jakob Steiner develops synthetic geometry

    His developments were published in Systematische Entwickelung der Abhängigkeit Geometrischer Gestalten von Einander.
  • Seventeen Countries sign the Treaty of the Meter

    Seventeen Countries sign the Treaty of the Meter

    The Treaty of Meter set the standard units of measure as the meter and kilogram.
  • Gregory and David Chudnovsky calculated Pi to 2,260,321,336 decimal places

    Gregory and David Chudnovsky calculated Pi to 2,260,321,336 decimal places

    This many digits, printed in a single line of ordinary newspaper type, would stretch from New York to Hollywood, California!
  • Andrew Wiles makes brilliant attempt to prove that Fermat's Last Theorem is True

    Andrew Wiles makes brilliant attempt to prove that Fermat's Last Theorem is True

    A failed attempt in 1993 gave Wiles the crucial idea for circumventing rather than closing the gap in his previous attempt.
  • Johann Heinrich Lambert proves that π is irrational

    Johann Heinrich Lambert proves that π is irrational

    Lambert was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer.
  • Al-Khwarizmi is born

    Al-Khwarizmi is born

    His algebra treatise Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala gives us the word algebra and can be considered as the first book to be written on algebra.