Department of Mathematics - Stony Brook University

Course information for MAT 336 - History of Mathematics - Spring 2021

1. General information about the course
2. Course Delivery Mode:
3. Communication:
   1. About email communication:
   2. About the course schedule:
   3. About Blackboard:
   4. General comments about communication:
4. Technical requirements:
5. Course Texts, Materials and Supplies
6. Attendance, Participation, and Classroom Climate. Online etiquette:
7. Course Learning Objectives
8. Assignments, Assessment and Grading
   1. Quizzes
   2. Homework:
   3. Grading of the Quizzes and Homework:
   4. Participation
   5. Presentation and paper:
      1. Bibliography checklist for presentation and paper:
      2. Outline and abstract of paper and presentation checklist:
      3. Checklist for presentation
      4. Checklist for format, topic and submission of the paper checklist:
      5. Checklist for the draft of the paper
   6. Rubrics
   7. Final Grade Breakdown:
9. Student Absences Statement
10. University and Course Policies University Policies:

General information about the course

Instructor: Moira Chas

Instructor email address: moira.chas ``at'' stonybrook.edu

Office: 3-113 Math Tower

Lectures: Tu-Th 3 to 4:20pm. 

Office hours:  Tu 12:30 to 1:30pm, Th 1 to 3pm and by appointment.  (Zoom link for office hours can be found here and in Blackboard). You are  welcome to make an appointment with me by sending me an email. In this case, please let me know when you are available. 

Prerequisites: MAT 200 or MAT 203 or MAT 250 or AMS 261.

Grader: Jade Nine

Grader Email Address : jade.nine “at” stonybrook.edu

Grader Office Hour: TBA

Course Description (from the Bulletin):: A survey of the history of mathematics from the beginnings through the 19th century, with special attention to primary sources and to the interactions between culture and mathematics. Emphasis on topics germane to the high school curriculum. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greek mathematics; non-European mathematics; early Renaissance mathematics; the birth and flowering of calculus; the beginnings of probability theory; and the origin of non-Euclidean geometries and the modern concept of number.

Course Delivery Mode:

• Lectures are synchronous online.
• Attendance is expected, with web camera on if possible. Otherwise, please post a photo or an avatar.

Communication:

•  announcements on the course Blackboard site,
•  the Discussion Forum available through the Discussions tab on the course Blackboard site,  where all of your course-related questions should be posted and where answers will be posted.
• email
• All course deadlines and materials will be posted on the course website.

        About email communication:

• I will  not answer individual questions by email, unless you have a question that only pertains to you. Questions about homework,  quizzes, paper, course material, etc must be asked in the discussion board in Blackboard.
• Any question about grades for homework and quizzes must be directed to Jade Nine, our grader. Be aware that while Jade is in charge of the actual grading, I am the one designing the questions and determining how long quizzes are.
• You must have an active Stony Brook University email account and access to the Internet. All instructor correspondence will be sent to your SBU email account. Plan on checking your SBU email account regularly for course-related messages, as well as checking Blackboard daily.
•  Write in complete and correct English sentences. Use standard punctuation and capitalization.
• Your Stony Brook University email account must be used for all University-related communications.
  

       About the course schedule:

• Here is the link to the course schedule. (Note that this schedule is tentative and will be updated according to the progress of the class).
• Homework assignments, reading, and deadlines will be posted on the course schedule.
• The course slides will be posted here, on the day of the lecture before 2pm.

       About Blackboard:

• The grader and I will post  announcements on Blackboard. These announcements may or may not be sent by email
•  Quizzes will be posted on Blackboard.
• You will upload solved quizzes and homework assignments to Blackboard.
• Course grades will be posted on Blackboard.
• There will be one discussion forum for questions and comments. Everybody is encourage to ask questions (make sure that you read the syllabus first, and that your question is not answered there) and to answer. Answers and relevant questions about the course material count as class participation grade.
• If you are responding to a post, include the relevant part of the original message in your reply, or refer to the original post,  to avoid confusion;

       General comments about communication:

• Make sure you communicate with me as soon as you can, any issue that interferes with your learning (COVID related or not). Often, I can help find a solution if I know the problem early enough.
• Remember that we will not have the non-verbal cues that occur in a regular classroom. I cannot see your expression. Thus, it is fundamental that you tell me when you need my help. It is my job to help you in this course, and I am happy to do it. 
• We must be polite, respectful and patient with each other. Remember that we all learn at different speeds.
• Remember that not all readers have English as their native language, so make allowances for possible misunderstandings and unintended discourtesies.

Technical requirements:

• You will need a computer with decent internet access. A tablet can be helpful, but isn’t required.
• Please contact me if access to technology is an issue.
• You need to be able to use email, a word processor, and presentation software to complete this course successfully.
• We are going to use the interactive platform PollsEverywhere for  questions, polls and surveys. You have to register in this link in order to use it (In the linked site, go to "Sign in with Google" and sign in with your SB email) . You will be able to answer the questions in this platform from a web browser or a smart phone app.

Course Texts, Materials and Supplies

• There is no required textbook (but there will reading!)
• There is a great deal of relevant material in the digital library JSTOR, which you can access with your Stony Brook Net ID. Other materials will be posted on the course schedule. The Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg are also good sources.

Attendance, Participation, and Classroom Climate. Online etiquette:

• Attendance is expected.
• Discussion and participation are a major part of this course. This means that it is your responsibility to come to class ready and willing to take part in group discussions and exercises.
• I strongly recommend that you  set up a "do not disturb" or equivalent on your phone. 
• Feel free (and encouraged!) to discuss with me  classroom dynamics issue that affects you.
• If any  issue prevents you from participating in the lectures and/or do the required work, contact me as soon as possible so we can find an alternative way for you to succeed in this class.
• There will be online polls and questions during the lectures. These can be answered with a web browser or by text. If you have trouble answering, please contact me as soon as possible.

Course Learning Objectives 

(Opinion of the instructor: I find it wonderful to observe the evolution of mathematical ideas through the time and I can't wait to share my enthusiasm with all the students)

• Describe the mathematical progress starting from ancient cultures such as Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, China, India and the Islamic world, and continuing with the European Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe and the Americas;
• Solve mathematical problems from the societies under study in the way these problems were solved at the time.
• Read and understand mathematical primary sources from different periods.

Stony Brook Curriculum requirements:

• Successful completion of MAT 336 with a C or better satisfies DEC H and the expository portion of the upper-division writing requirement for the mathematics major, as well as the SPK, STAS and WRTD objectives of the Stony Brook Curriculum.
• Learning Outcomes for "Understand relationships between Science or Technology and the Arts, Humanities or Social Sciences (STAS)": Apply concepts and tools drawn from any field of study in order to understand the links between science or technology and the arts, humanities or social sciences. Synthesize quantitative and/or technical information and qualitative information to make informed judgments about the reciprocal relationship between science or technology and the arts, humanities or social sciences.
• Learning Outcomes for “Speak Effectively before an Audience (SPK)” Research a topic, develop an oral argument and organize supporting details. Deliver a proficient and substantial oral presentation for the intended audience using appropriate media. Evaluate oral presentations of others according to specific criteria.
• Learning Outcomes for “Write Effectively within One’s Discipline (WRTD) Collect the most pertinent evidence, draw appropriate disciplinary inferences, organize effectively for one's intended audience, and write in a confident voice using correct grammar and punctuation.

Assignments, Assessment and Grading

We will have homework assignments, quizzes, a presentation and a term paper.

One cannot learn mathematics or history to mathematics without doing and thinking about "historical" mathematics.  Each week, you should expect to devote a minimum of five hours outside the classroom to this course. The amount of homework to submit each week will not be constant so it is strongly advised to plan ahead.

Quizzes

• There will be 4 quizzes,  on dates announced in the course schedule.
• The material of each quiz will be posted on the course schedule on the Friday of the previous week.
• There are no make-up quizzes. 
• Quizzes will be taken during class time, and should be uploaded to Blackboard, on the dates indicated on the course schedule.  Students who are experiencing internet problems should alert both the instructor and the grader as soon as possible by email.
• You can submit quizzes either by typing in your computer and uploading the file or clearly writing on paper and uploading a clear picture of your work.
• You are not allowed surf the internet during the quizzes. You are ONLY allowed to have your class notes.
• Each quiz is worth 20 points. 
• Questions on the quiz will be similar to those on previous homework sets.

 Homework:

• There will be 9 homework  assignments.
• The questions will be posted on the course schedule  the Friday of the before it is due .
• The lowest homework assignment grade will be dropped.
• The grader will grade only selected problems on the homework.
•  No late homework will be accepted.
• If needed, materials will be posted in the course schedule to supplement what we do in class. Information from lectures and materials posted in the schedule should be enough to solve the homework problems. If you have doubts, do not hesitate to ask on the discussion board on Blackboard.
• While you can discuss homework problems with your classmates, your write-up must be your own. In particular, you are  is not allowed to "cut and paste" content from the internet.
• You can submit homework either by typing in your computer and uploading the file or clearly writing on paper and uploading a clear picture of your work.
• Each homework set is worth 12 points.

 Grading of the Quizzes and Homework:

• Make sure that you spend enough time working on the homework, and reviewing for the quiz.
• On the week after a graded homework problem set or quiz is returned to you, you can re-submit a correct version of the problems on which you did not get full credit. If enough work is shown, the grader can add points to the graded homework, if appropriate. (We are going to experiment with this procedure, and stop doing it if it proves inefficient)
• The grader will not grade illegible work.

 Participation:

• Participation grade for this class will be based on discussion and activities that we do in class,  Blackboard discussions and evaluation of presentations as well as in-class polls and questions and a visit to office hours.
• Note that participation means being fully present in class, work on the proposed activities and ask relevant questions. It does not mean to have the perfect answer at all times.
• The grading of the interactive activities on PollsEverywhere are of two types:
• Questions whose answers require familiarity with ideas not covered in the course, or simply being on time (like answering "How is your day" in the beginning of the class)  will only be graded for participation. (5 points per answer)
• Questions about material covered in the course will be graded by performance and participation (5 points for answering, up to 5 points for content).
• You are not allowed surf the internet during class. This is because  attending to the material will maximize your learning. This includes not using the internet (or any other source) for PollsEverywhere activities.
• A PollsEverywhere question will be open to post a summary at the end of the lecture. The type of summary (about the completed lecture in most cases, occasionally more general) will be indicated in the question. The summary will be open until  midnight of the day of the lecture.
• A visit to office hours (to the instructor's or the grader's) earns you 20 points.

Presentation and paper:

The paper and presentation must be addressed to an audience who are not necessarily mathematicians, rather somebody who know  some mathematics (say,   sophomore Math major, at Stony Brook who know what a proof is.) The paper and presentation should be as self-contained as possible. I will give a list of possible choices for the presentation topic. You are going to choose the paper topic, which I'll approve if it is appropriate.

Bibliography checklist for presentation and paper:

• It contains at least on book. (Besides the Stony Brook Library,  good sources of online books are the Internet Archive and  Project Gutenberg)
• It contains at least one primary source, possibly translated from the original language. (A primary source is an original writing -possibly translated- from the area under study. For instance,  Euler on the Bridges of Koningsberg, translated by Prof. Phillips, or The Foundations of Geometry by David Hilbert.)
• It contains at least one secondary source. A secondary source is a paper that elaborates on a primary source. The paper "Jiu zhang suan shu" (Nine Chapters on the Art of Mathematics) - An Appraisal of the Text, its Editions, and Translations is an example of a secondary source. (JSTOR is a good source of such papers).
• The book, the primary source and the secondary source must be different.
•  On the course website, there are some suggested papers for the presentation. Most of the suggestions are papers I found on a quick search, and it is not mandatory to use them.
• About citing a website: The only websites that you are allowed to use are the  MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, and Convergence (from the Mathematical Association of America Convergence). If you want to use any other website, you must request permission in the Blackboard Discussion forum.
• The paper must contain appropriate citations. Numerical pointers to the bibliography are fine.
• All formats for a bibliography entry are acceptable as long as they are clear and precise. (Google scholar is usually helpful. Check the “ below an entry). The URL address can be added but it cannot replace all the other data (author, title, year, etc). JSTOR also gives citation. For instance, the secondary source cited above is Dauben, Joseph W. “九章箅术 ‘Jiu Zhang Suan Shu’ (Nine Chapters on the Art of Mathematics) - An Appraisal of the Text, Its Editions, and Translations.” Sudhoffs Archiv, vol. 97, no. 2, 2013, pp. 199–235. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43694474. Accessed 14 Aug. 2020.

Outline and abstract of paper and presentation checklist:

• The abstract is a short summary (about 200 words) of the material. 
• The outline describes the structure of the paper or the presentation. 
• There are examples in the papers you find here.

  Checklist for presentation

• The outline and draft of slides of presentation  were submitted by (2/15).
• An appointment  was made to rehearse the presentation in this link. 
• The presentation was completely ready at the time of the rehearsal.
• The presentation has been rehearsed  with the instructor over Zoom one week before the actual presentation.  (I encourage you to do a rehearsal with a friend, or a mirror, before you rehearse with me)
• The  presentation is done over Zoom on a topic assigned by the instructor, with  student input. (It is possible that, when you prepare your presentation, you find that a certain aspect of the topic is more interest. In that case, it is fine to prepare that aspect.) 
• The presentation is as self-contained as possible.
• The presentation is addressed to an audience who are not necessarily mathematicians, rather somebody who know  some mathematics (say,   sophomore Math major, at Stony Brook who know what a proof is.)
• There are examples of the concepts discussed.
• A "math point" is a purely mathematical aspect of the topic which is mastered by the student and explained to the class. This math point can be, for instance, the solution of a problem, or the proof of a statement.  It does not have to be the "whole" mathematical aspect of the topic.
• It lasts between 10 and 12 minutes.
• Here you have an example of an excellent presentation, as well as the slides. Note that the presentation is longer than the required duration in this course.
• After the presentation, there will be a short class discussion, in which the other students can ask questions, or make comments.
• All students (except the presenter) will  fill out a short  form evaluating the presentation.
• The schedule for student in-class presentations is subject to change. Any changes will be announced in class and posted in the course schedule.
• The presenter must use PowerPoint, Google Slides or similar software.
• Slides do not distract the audience from the topic
• The slides cannot contain more than 100 words in total. (If you really need more than 100 words, discuss this issue with your instructor).
• Notes to help your memory are fine. However, the presentation cannot consist only of reading.
• If you want to do a longer presentation,  please discuss it with me.

Checklist for format, topic and submission of the paper checklist:

• The topic has been chosen by the student and approved by the instructor.
• The draft is submitted before the due date by the student after an appointment with the Writing Center. (Mention MAT 336 when you make the appointment.)
• The paper is addressed to an audience who are not necessarily mathematicians, rather somebody who know  some mathematics (say,   sophomore Math major, at Stony Brook who know what a proof is.)
• The topic is different from that of the presentation.
• The paper contains at least 2500 words (excluding the bibliography, outline and abstract).
• The first page (s) of the paper contains the title of the paper, the name of the student, the outline, the abstract and number of words (counted excluding the bibliography, outline and abstract).
• The paper is written in an easily readable font (like Times New Roman or Cambria), size 12 pts.
• The paper is in PDF form.
• The paper is submitted through Blackboard.
•  The paragraphs are double spaced and have their first line indented.
• The paper contains relevant diagrams, figures and/or tables.
• Diagrams, figures and tables are  clearly captioned, and, if appropriate, they include credits. They are referenced in a consistent way.  (If a diagram, figure or table is not referenced, it is probably not  relevant). Illustrations, tables and diagrams created by the students are encouraged.
• The paper contains
• a brief historic frame of the topic in question,
• a brief mathematical framing
• a very clear discussion of a particular math point, which is  is a purely mathematical aspect of the topic. This math point can be, for instance, the solution of a problem, or the proof of a statement. The “math point” has to be something that the student understands very well.
• Lengthy biographical sketches are not needed -they are easily available. But historical antecedents of the points you are explaining, and their historical consequences, are worth exploring.
• The paper is divided into sections (possibly the ones you listed in the outline)
• There are examples of papers here.

Checklist for the draft of the paper

• The draft has at least 2500 words.
• The draft is not necessarily the finished paper but is a readable document that "makes sense".
• A"complete" grade in the draft means that it "makes sense". We (the grader and myself) will not be able to read all the draft. If you have any question, please ask either of us for our opinion.

Rubrics

The presentation, homework and paper  rubrics are here.

Final Grade Breakdown:

Student Absences Statement

University and Course Policies University Policies:

Student Accessibility Support Center Statement:

If you have a physical, psychological, medical, or learning disability that may impact your course work, please contact the Student Accessibility Support Center, 128 ECC Building, (631) 632-6748, or at sasc@stonybrook.edu. They will determine with you what accommodations are necessary and appropriate. All information and documentation is confidential. Students who require assistance during emergency evacuation are encouraged to discuss their needs with their professors and the Student Accessibility Support Center. For procedures and information go to the following website: https://ehs.stonybrook.edu/programs/fire-safety/emergency-evacuation/evacuation-guide-people-physical-disabilities and search Fire Safety and Evacuation and Disabilities.

Academic Integrity Statement:

Each student must pursue his or her academic goals honestly and be personally accountable for all submitted work. Representing another person's work as your own is always wrong. Faculty is required to report any suspected instances of academic dishonesty to the Academic Judiciary. Faculty in the Health Sciences Center (School of Health Technology & Management, Nursing, Social Welfare, Dental Medicine) and School of Medicine are required to follow their school-specific procedures. For more comprehensive information on academic integrity, including categories of academic dishonesty please refer to the academic judiciary website at http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/academic_integrity/index.html Important Note: Any form of academic dishonesty, including cheating and plagiarism, will be reported to the Academic Judiciary.

 Critical Incident Management:

 Stony Brook University expects students to respect the rights, privileges, and property of other people. Faculty are required to report to the Office of University Community Standards any disruptive behavior that interrupts their ability to teach, compromises the safety of the learning environment, or inhibits students' ability to learn. Faculty in the HSC Schools and the School of Medicine are required to follow their school-specific procedures. Further information about most academic matters can be found in the Undergraduate Bulletin, the Undergraduate Class Schedule, and the Faculty-Employee Handbook.