- #1
zoobyshoe
- 6,510
- 1,290
What do you think of this take on Greek math? I have never heard such a sentiment before.
"Recorded mathematics begins in the Orient, where, about 2000 B.C., the Babylonians collected a great wealth of material that we would classify today under elementary algebra...
…It may be that the early discovery of the difficulties connected with 'incommensurable' quantities deterred the Greeks from developing the art of numerical reckoning achieved before in the orient. Instead they forced their way through the thicket of pure axiomatic geometry. Thus one of the strange detours of the history of science began, and perhaps a great opportunity was missed. For almost two thousands years the weight of Greek geometrical tradition retarded the inevitable evolution of the number concept and of algebraic manipulation, which later formed the basis of modern science."
What Is Mathematics?
Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins, 1941
"Recorded mathematics begins in the Orient, where, about 2000 B.C., the Babylonians collected a great wealth of material that we would classify today under elementary algebra...
…It may be that the early discovery of the difficulties connected with 'incommensurable' quantities deterred the Greeks from developing the art of numerical reckoning achieved before in the orient. Instead they forced their way through the thicket of pure axiomatic geometry. Thus one of the strange detours of the history of science began, and perhaps a great opportunity was missed. For almost two thousands years the weight of Greek geometrical tradition retarded the inevitable evolution of the number concept and of algebraic manipulation, which later formed the basis of modern science."
What Is Mathematics?
Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins, 1941