HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS

The area of study known as the history of mathematics is primarily an investigation into the origin
of discoveries in mathematicsand, to a lesser extent, an investigation into the mathematical methods
and notation of the past.
Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new
mathematical developments have come to light only in a few locales. The most ancient mathematical
texts available are Plimpton 322 (Babylonian c. 1900 BC),[2] the Rhind Mathematical
Papyrus (Egyptian c. 20001800 BC)[3] and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian c. 1890
BC). All of these texts concern the so-called Pythagorean theorem, which seems to be the most
ancient and widespread mathematical development after basic arithmetic and geometry.
The study of mathematics as a demonstrative discipline begins in the 6th century BC with
the Pythagoreans, who coined the term "mathematics" from the ancient Greek (mathema),
meaning "subject of instruction".[4] Greek mathematics greatly refined the methods (especially
through the introduction of deductive reasoning and mathematical rigor in proofs) and expanded the
subject matter of mathematics.[5] Chinese mathematics made early contributions, including a place
value system.[6][7] The HinduArabic numeral system and the rules for the use of its operations, in use
throughout the world today, likely evolved over the course of the first millennium AD in India and
were transmitted to the west via Islamic mathematics through the work of Muhammad ibn Ms alKhwrizm.[8][9] Islamic mathematics, in turn, developed and expanded the mathematics known to
these civilizations.[10] Many Greek and Arabic texts on mathematics were then translated into Latin,
which led to further development of mathematics in medieval Europe.

Prehistoric mathematics[edit]
The origins of mathematical thought lie in the concepts of number, magnitude, and form.[11] Modern
studies of animal cognition have shown that these concepts are not unique to humans. Such
concepts would have been part of everyday life in hunter-gatherer societies. The idea of the
"number" concept evolving gradually over time is supported by the existence of languages which
preserve the distinction between "one", "two", and "many", but not of numbers larger than two. [11]
Prehistoric artifacts discovered in Africa, dated 20,000 years old or more suggest early attempts
to quantify time.[12] The Ishango bone, found near the headwaters of the Nileriver
(northeastern Congo), may be more than 20,000 years old and consists of a series of tally marks
carved in three columns running the length of the bone. Common interpretations are that the
Ishango bone shows either the earliest known demonstration of sequences of prime numbers[13] or a
six-month lunar calendar.[14] Peter Rudman argues that the development of the concept of prime
numbers could only have come about after the concept of division, which he dates to after 10,000
BC, with prime numbers probably not being understood until about 500 BC. He also writes that "no
attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime
numbers between 10 and 20, and some numbers that are almost multiples of 10." [15] The Ishango
bone, according to scholar Alexander Marshack, may have influenced the later development of
mathematics in Egypt as, like some entries on the Ishango bone, Egyptian arithmetic also made use
of multiplication by 2; this, however, is disputed.[16]

Predynastic Egyptians of the 5th millennium BC pictorially represented geometric designs. It has
been claimed that megalithic monuments in England and Scotland, dating from the 3rd millennium
BC, incorporate geometric ideas such as circles, ellipses, and Pythagorean triples in their design.
[17]
All of the above are disputed however, and the currently oldest undisputed mathematical
documents are from Babylonian and dynastic Egyptian sources.

Babylonian mathematics[edit]

The Babylonian mathematical tablet Plimpton 322, dated to 1800 BC.

Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the peoples of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)
from the days of the early Sumeriansthrough the Hellenistic period almost to the dawn
of Christianity.[18] The majority of Babylonian mathematical work comes from two widely separated
periods: The first few hundred years of the second millennium BC (Old Babylonian period), and the
last few centuries of the first millennium BC (Seleucid period).[19] It is named Babylonian mathematics
due to the central role of Babylon as a place of study. Later under the Arab Empire, Mesopotamia,
especially Baghdad, once again became an important center of study for Islamic mathematics.

20th century[edit]

A map illustrating the Four Color Theorem

The 20th century saw mathematics become a major profession. Every year, thousands of new
Ph.D.s in mathematics were awarded, and jobs were available in both teaching and industry. An

effort to catalogue the areas and applications of mathematics was undertaken inKlein's
encyclopedia.
In a 1900 speech to the International Congress of Mathematicians, David Hilbert set out a list of 23
unsolved problems in mathematics. These problems, spanning many areas of mathematics, formed
a central focus for much of 20th-century mathematics. Today, 10 have been solved, 7 are partially
solved, and 2 are still open. The remaining 4 are too loosely formulated to be stated as solved or
not.
Notable historical conjectures were finally proven. In 1976, Wolfgang Haken and Kenneth
Appel used a computer to prove the four color theorem. Andrew Wiles, building on the work of
others, proved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1995. Paul Cohen and Kurt Gdel proved that
the continuum hypothesis is independent of (could neither be proved nor disproved from)
the standard axioms of set theory. In 1998Thomas Callister Hales proved the Kepler conjecture.
Mathematical collaborations of unprecedented size and scope took place. An example is
the classification of finite simple groups (also called the "enormous theorem"), whose proof between
1955 and 1983 required 500-odd journal articles by about 100 authors, and filling tens of thousands
of pages. A group of French mathematicians, including Jean Dieudonn and Andr Weil, publishing
under thepseudonym "Nicolas Bourbaki", attempted to exposit all of known mathematics as a
coherent rigorous whole. The resulting several dozen volumes has had a controversial influence on
mathematical education.[142]

Future of mathematics[edit]
Main article: Future of mathematics
There are many observable trends in mathematics, the most notable being that the subject is
growing ever larger, computers are ever more important and powerful, the application of
mathematics to bioinformatics is rapidly expanding, the volume of data to be analyzed being
produced by science and industry, facilitated by computers, is explosively expanding. [citation needed]