The Crest of the Peacock Response

The Crest of the Peacock by George Gheverghese John explores non-European history of mathematics. Below are some of my findings in chapter 1.

As someone who studied math in the modern age for what it currently is, I was very enlightened by the span of time and geographical coverage of the non-Eurocentric mathematic systems. We take for granted the base 10 and scientific measurements used in everyday life and never thought about the history of them. Asian continent had mathematical development through sharing knowledge by trade. Figure 1.4 illustrates the intricate knowledge transfer happening over 6500 years and across number of regions. Again, as someone who can search anything using my cellphone, the spread and cultivation of mathematical knowledge back in ancient Asia was a feat to be inspired with.

I was also fascinated by how the place value principle has been discovered independently four times in math history. Babylonian used it to denote base 60 values, Chinese used It in rod calculus, Indian used a place value decimal which we have adopted for modern mathematics and finally Mayan used a place value for its base 20 values. I am inclined to believe the ingenuity of mathematicians around the world all shared similar problems and had the same insight on establishing a system to expand the upper limit of counting numbers.

Comments

  1. Erica HuangOctober 4, 2024 at 3:57 PM

    Thanks for the thoughtful reflection, Raymond! The spread and cultivation of mathematical knowledge in ancient times is indeed amazing. Hopefully, as more math educators now advocate for culturally relevant pedagogy, we could introduce more non-European history of mathematics to our students and show them how brilliant human intelligence was back then in other areas of the world, too!

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