Math 390: History of Math
Catalog Course Description: A survey of the history of mathematics from ancient times into the 20th century, in cultural context, with attention given to how the philosophy of mathematics relates to the development of mathematics.
Syllabus
Slides
Slides from each lecture (as numbered in the syllabus) are available via the links below.
- Lecture 1 HoM in a Large Nutshell
- Lecture 2 Egyptian Math
- Lecture 3 Mesopotamian Math
- Lecture 4 Pre-Euclidean Math
- Lecture 5 Greek Philosophy of Math
- Lecture 6 Euclid
- Lecture 7 Archimedes; Greek conics and trig
- Lecture 8 Late Greek Math
- Lecture 9 Chinese Arithmetic and Linear Algebra
- Lecture 10 Indian Arithmetic and Algebra
- Lecture 11 Arabic Arithmetic and Algebra: al-Khwarizmi
- Lecture 12 Medieval Arithmetic and Algebra: Fibonacci
- Lecture 13 16th Century Algebra: Fibonacci and Jordanus/Developments in Algebra
- Lecture 14 Developments in Algebra: Bombelli, Viete
- Lecture 15 Developments in Algebra: Fermat and Descartes
- Lecture 16 Calculus: Beginnings
- Lecture 17 Calculus: Newton
- Lecture 18 Calculus: Leibniz
- Lecture 19 Foundations of Calculus
- Lecture 20 Probability
- Lecture 21 Geometry and the Parallel Postulate
- Lecture 22 Modern Algebra
- Lecture 23 Non-Euclidean Geometry
- Lecture 24 Axioms and Set Theory
- Lecture 25 Logic and Logicism
- Lecture 26 Formalism
- Lecture 27 Statistics and Computation
- Lecture 28 Recent Developments in Mathematics
- Lecture 29 Women in Math