Key events in History of Mathematics
Links with Religion- calendars- Priests = mathematicians - predicting Nile floods Early number theory and shape 500BC The Mystic pentagram. Won-Wang - the 8 tri-grams of the Pakua Korean flag- Magic Squares in the ìLo-Shuî 380BC Pythagoras of Samos solids regular/convex Spiral shapes- growth forms -Nautilus shell 250BC Archimedes studied spirals - cylinder, sphere -later attempts to map natural shapes to curves 230BC Eratosthenes Use of straight-edge and compasses in architecture- decoration of buildings- Moorish tessellation.- present-day floor tiles 1202 Leonardo of Pisano (Fibonacci) Fibonacci Series 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21… 1525 Durer - Perspective, using grids. Nets of polyhedra 1550 The earth- Map-making- world exploration Gerard Mercator Projections of sphere onto a cylinder Maths 2 1609 Ellipses Kepler elliptical orbits of the planets- Shapes from algebraic functions. Special curves. The “witch” of Maria Agnesi 1735 Connectivity Leonhard Euler topology- the 7 bridges of konigsberg 1810 Star polygons- Louis Poinsot. More non-Platonic polyhedra 1828 Surfaces- new geometries- non-Euclidean Surfaces – Lobachevsky 1832 Bolyai 1854 Riemann 1858 Moebius surfaces 1898 Escher architect - use of maths grids to generate art 1982 Fractals- Benoit Mandelbrot – “phyllotaxis” or turning angles of plants-cauliflowers, pine cones- the ‘natural’ angle and 'phi' 1990s – Computer vector graphics – 3D visualization (Spirograph applets) |
Some famous curves
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