MAT336: History of Mathematics

Lectures 1 and 3 – Fall 2025

Only student-assigned topics shown; unassigned schedule topics removed. Dotted line separates two presenters in the same lecture.

Class Topic Presentations
Oct 1
Lect 11		 The earliest Hellenic mathematics Unit Fractions & Rhind Papyrus — Giuseppe
Oct 6
Lect 12		 The earliest Hellenic mathematics Thales & Shadow of the Pyramid — Janet
Oct 8
Lect 13		 The earliest Hellenic mathematics -
Oct 15
Lect 14		 Euclid’s Elements – Number Theory — Quiz The Two Earths of Eratosthenes Takara
Oct 20
Lect 15		 Euclid’s Elements – Axiom Systems Regular Polygons in Ancient Mathematics — Melody
The Historical Development of the Platonic Solids — Keyue
Oct 22
Lect 16		 Euclid’s Elements – Non-Euclidean The Parallel Postulate and its Role in Geometry — Yutong
The Story of the Binomial Theorem — Ellie
Oct 27
Lect 17		 Archimedes Ptolemy’s Theorem and Ancient Astronomy — Saudeep
Gauss and the Discovery of Ceres — Nicholas
Oct 29
Lect 18		 Apollonius, Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Diophantus Diophantus of Alexandria — Celina
Historical Development of Complex Numbers — Hannah
Nov 3
Lect 19		 Chinese Mathematics Curves Before Equations (Ancient through Early 17th Century) — Micah
Curves by Equations (17th Century on) — Aurora
Nov 5
Lect 20		 Chinese Mathematics (cont.) — Quiz Right-Angled Triangles in Ancient China Joseph
Nov 10
Lect 21		 Indian Mathematics Ancient Indian Square Roots — Michael
Ancient Chinese Square Root Algorithms — Jinghao
Nov 12
Lect 22		 Indian / Islamic Mathematics Early History of the Isoperimetric Problem — Sylv
Nov 17
Lect 23		 Islamic Mathematics Ibn al-Haytham and Early Algebra — Tahjae
Omar Khayyam: Geometric Algebra and Cubic Equations — Ed
Nov 19
Lect 24		 Renaissance Mathematics
Descartes and the Geometrization of Algebra — Liam
Nov 24
Lect 25		 Renaissance Math (cont.) Kovalevskaya’s Sine Anecdote — Gabriela
Euler and the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra — Violet
Dec 1
Lect 26		 Calculus Origins The rule of false position from Fibonacci to Cardano. — Doris
Origin of Irrational Numbers and Their Approximations — Austin

Pascal and the Invention of Probability Theory — Jungoo
Dec 3
Lect 27		 Selected Topics - Königsberg Bridges and the Birth of Graph Theory — Max
The Story of Fermat’s Last Theorem — Haojun
Dec 8
Lect 28		 Review / Last Day/ Quiz 5 Topology: Nature and Significance — David
Ramanujan's Notebooks — Samuel