MAT 336 History of Mathematics
Fall 2006
Index Course Description Syllabus Homework Schedule of Presentations |
|
MAT 336 History of Mathematics
|
Index Course Description Syllabus Homework Schedule of Presentations |
|
Presentations 1 and 2 on Tuesday,
Presentations 3 and 4 on Thursday.
Presentation topics must be relevant to the material covered that week or in previous weeks. Presentation topic will be the topic of Term Paper 1. Make sure you discuss your presentation with the instructor at least one week in advance. |
Week 1 (Sept 6) Primitive counting; Positional and non-positional number systems. Mayan calendars. Babylonian number recording. (B: 1.1, 1.3)
Week 2 (Sept 11) Babylonian MultiplicationTables; the decoding of Plimpton 322. (B: 2.5, 2.6)
Week 3 (Sept 18) Egyptian number recording and Arithmetic.
Week 4 (Sept 25) Thales and Pythagoras; Euclid. (B: 3.1, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2)
Presentation 1 - Jan Nowicki: Plimpton 322
Presentation 2 - Levon McMullen: Moscow Papyrus problem number 14
Presentation 3 - Richard Vigilante: Archimedes' calculation of π
Presentation 4 - Emily Chase: Ancient Chinese calculation of π
Week 5 (Oct 2) Euclid and Archimedes. (B: 4.3, 4.5)
Presentation 1 - Jason Jo: Euclid on the number of primes
Presentation 2 - Megan Di Tolla: Diophantus' Arithmetica
Presentation 3 -
Presentation 4 -
Week 6 (Oct 9) Arab, Indian and Chinese mathematics during the "dark ages." (B: 5,3, 5.5)
Presentation 1 -
Presentation 2 - Thomas Mullen: The Sieve of Eratosthenes
Presentation 3 - Andrew Candela: Archimedes' quadrature of the parabola
Presentation 4 - Anna Scattone: Fibonacci on the rabbit problem
Week 7 (Oct 16) Fibonacci; Cardano and Tartaglia. (B: 6.2, 7.2, 7.3)
Presentation 1 - June Gong: The abacus
Presentation 2 - James Cleveland: Ancient Indian mathematics
Presentation 3 - Thomas Wulff: Euclid on the Euclidean Algorithm
Presentation 4 - Joseph Catapano: Cardano and Tartaglia
Week 8 (Oct 23) Galileo and Descartes. (B: 8.1, 8.2)
Presentation 1 - Mark Carman: Eratosthenes' calculation of the size of the Earth
Presentation 2 -
Presentation 3 - Mauro Rojas: Problems from the Rhind Papyrus
Presentation 4 -
Week 9 (Oct 30) Newton and Leibnitz. (B: 8.3, 8.4)
Presentation 1 - Mark Murray: Leibniz' work with series
Presentation 2 - Marie Nett: Barrow and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus
Presentation 3 - Jessica Sherman: Diophantus of Alexandria and his work with algebra.
Presentation 4 - Evan Sommer: Napier and his logarithms
Week 10 (Nov 6) Probability: Pascal to Laplace. (B: 9.1, 9.2, 9.3)
Presentation 1 -
Presentation 2 -
Presentation 3 - Zhen Chen: Mathematical Induction-Francesco Maurolico 1575
Presentation 4 - James Hoffman:
Week 11 (Nov 13) Number theory from Fermat to Euler. (B: 10.1, 10.2)
Presentation 1 - Anne Verticchio: Descartes' influence on geometry
Presentation 2 - Spencer Wilson:
Presentation 3 - Jonathan Halvax: History of determinants
Presentation 4 - Veronica Zak: Problems from the Sea Island Mathematical Manual
Week 12 (Nov 20) Gauss, Bolyai and Lobachevsky (B: 10.3, 11.1, 11.2)
Presentation 1 - Brian Zaharatos: History of the infinitesimal
Presentation 2 - Armin Ghiam: History of the Gaussian distribution
Week 13 (Nov 27) Cauchy and Fourier (B: 11.3)
Presentation 1 - Jaclyn Labozzetta: Pascal and Projective Geometry
Presentation 2 - Danielle Kuefner: History of group theory
Presentation 3 - Christopher Garritano: History of perfect numbers
Presentation 4 - Alice Feng: Zu Chongzhi on the volume of the sphere
Week 14 (Dec 5) Cantor and the infinite (B: 12.2, 12.3)
Presentation 1 - Michael Andrejkovics: Fourier on the Heat Equation
Presentation 2 - Marc Cavallo: Evariste Galois
Presentation 3 -
Presentation 4 - Eduardo Moon: Gauss on quadratic reciprocity
Week 14 (Dec 12) Review
Presentation 1 -
Presentation 2