Why Did the Romans Neglect Mathematics for a Millennium?

[zoobyshoe]

Vitruvius would probably mince you in one of his screwpumps for saying that.

Which he wouldn't be able to do if Archimedes hadn't invented it for him.

Just because they didn't invent any new math theories doesn't necessarily mean they didn't learn some of the things the Greeks and Babylonians came up with. I can sympathize with the Romans. I haven't come up with any new math theories at all, but at least I've learned a few of the principles other, smarter people have developed.

This is probably the case. A look at the wiki article on Vitruvius makes it clear he drew from every previous source he could get his hands on. His book is partly in Greek, which may or may not mean he had a Greek education in mechanics, or it may mean simply mean he spoke Greek and assimilated previously existing Greek works into his own compendium.

It's clear if you've ever read any Caesar that the Romans were very versatile in adapting the technology they knew to the specific situations that arose in specific battles against specific enemies. If they didn't develop any new math it was most likely because they didn't need any new math for their purposes.

 

[Bandersnatch]

What I was trying to say there, was that it's one thing to state that the Romans hadn't invented anything new in maths, and another to say that they needed Greeks to do the maths for them.
The second proposition is rather too dismissive of the Romans, and that's what I was objecting to.

 

[zoobyshoe]

What I was trying to say there, was that it's one thing to state that the Romans hadn't invented anything new in maths, and another to say that they needed Greeks to do the maths for them.
The second proposition is rather too dismissive of the Romans, and that's what I was objecting to.

You're right, and I rescind my terrible, slanderous, mud slinging, and wholeheartedly apologize to any ancient Romans who may have been offended by my callous remarks.

 

[Office_Shredder]

So can we all agree the Romans were the MBA graduates of the ancient world?

 

[DiracPool]

I think you missed the joke.

Don't worry Dipole, nobody laughed at my joke either.

 

[wukunlin]

You mean a foot per nanosecond? Otherwise he must have been an engineer...

haha yes I do mean nanosecond.
As for engineers, I don't think the ones in my university even knows light has a finite travel time.

 

[Bacle2]

However much praise the Greeks deserve, their belief in the supernatural, i.e., in the gods, is in conflict with reason (which is what they're known for, or believe to stand for), and it ultimately stopped the development of their Mathematics when they would not, could not accept the existence of irrational numbers, because their existence was counter to their beliefs. The Romans did not have these qualms.
And the Greeks not only had some natural geographic defenses to help protect them from invasions; they also had the Spartans to do some of the dirty work. This allowed them to spend more time thinking about philosophy. The Romans had neither, and had to get it together or risk being invaded, and could not so easily afford to lower their guard; they had to be prepared and so had to deal with pressing practical issues to a larger extent than the Greeks.


I remember watching a PBS documentary about the modern city/metropolis in which many majors of large cities mentioned that they were able to successfully address many of their cities' problems by copying what the Romans had done to address the problems of their own cities.

And then there's the legacy of Roman law too.

 

[Borek]

And the Greeks not only had some natural geographic defenses to help protect them from invasions; they also had the Spartans to do some of the dirty work. This allowed them to spend more time thinking about philosophy. The Romans had neither, and had to get it together or risk being invaded, and could not so easily afford to lower their guard

I don't buy this argument. Not in the case of empire so safe and rich they could arrange sea battles in the Colosseum.

It is not only mathematics. Have you heard about alchemy/chemistry in the ancient Rome? Physics experiments and discoveries? They had a lot of practical knowledge, but they didn't try to push the science forward. There must have been some cultural reason for that.

 

[Office_Shredder]

However much praise the Greeks deserve, their belief in the supernatural, i.e., in the gods, is in conflict with reason (which is what they're known for, or believe to stand for), and it ultimately stopped the development of their Mathematics when they would not, could not accept the existence of irrational numbers, because their existence was counter to their beliefs. The Romans did not have these qualms.

This is way overstating the case. Yes, it's true the Pythagoreans keel-hauled one of their own for discovering irrational numbers (at least as far as we are able to tell) but after that things went much more smoothly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number#History

As you can see in the Greek part they overhauled their way of writing down numbers to move away from "numbers", which were integers and ratios of them, to "magnitudes" which were measurements of geometric objects - in particular could contain irrational numbers. Of course this left them unable to do much algebra since their number system basically became line lengths and angles for the purposes of doing mathematical research, but it's not true that there was a systemic resistance to irrational numbers that halted progress.

Borek, considering how wrong most science was at the time I wouldn't hold it against them to not waste their time with it :p

 

[Borek]

Borek, considering how wrong most science was at the time I wouldn't hold it against them to not waste their time with it :p

But I don't mean pure science. Was inventing distillation beyond their abilities? Was inventing black powder too difficult? Yes, these are sometimes one-time things, but they grow from some kind of entrepreneurship, will to experiment, will to be innovative, looks to me like Romans didn't even try.

 

[turbo]

Was inventing black powder difficult? We don't know. It would seem that a society that was intent on conquest/expansion and had spread all over most of the known world (at the time) would like to have gunpowder, and would like to get the formula. If the Chinese had already developed that technology, why not try to get the formula from them?

 

[Office_Shredder]

It's not like they had no material science. They invented concrete, and I'm sure developed many iterations of better ironworking techniques.

Also turbo, Rome and China had essentially zero contact for Rome's entire history (I don't know if they ever had direct contact, but they certainly had no direct trade relations)

 

[cake of doom]

/...Also turbo, Rome and China had essentially zero contact for Rome's entire history (I don't know if they ever had direct contact, but they certainly had no direct trade relations)

A Roman delegation did make it to China, where they exchanged various gifts but other than that, the Parthians where pretty good at keeping the two apart. By doing this they made sure that they were the only empire that controlled trade to the west (mega bucks).

The Roman school system did include basic math: counting, multiplication, addition etc. but the main focus was on grammar and rhetoric; that is, if you made it that far and didn't have the thirst for learning beaten out of you by then.

 

[Physics_UG]

haha yes I do mean nanosecond.
As for engineers, I don't think the ones in my university even knows light has a finite travel time.

I thought the joke was you were implying a roman foot was particularly large...I guess not

 

[Office_Shredder]

I thought the joke was you were implying a roman foot was particularly large...I guess not

It's about .97ish English feet.

Although I also enjoy interpreting the joke that he's adjusting for that 3% error when he's already off by 9 orders of magnitude

 

[Physics_UG]

It's about .97ish English feet.

Although I also enjoy interpreting the joke that he's adjusting for that 3% error when he's already off by 9 orders of magnitude

lol, yeah

 

[collinsmark]

It's about .97ish English feet.

Although I also enjoy interpreting the joke that he's adjusting for that 3% error when he's already off by 9 orders of magnitude

I think professor's quote was supposed to be the distance light travels in a nanosecond (rather than a second). That's pretty close to a foot.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

It should be understood that by the second century (101-200 CE) Rome had granted citizenship to many provincials and was a multi-ethnic/multicultural state. Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean from Hellenistic times and the Hellenistic culture dominated this region throughout the Roman period. Alexandria remained a Greek speaking city and center of learning in the Greek mode including mathematics. Ptolemy of Alexandria created his famous chart of the then known solar system. He managed to develop a system of orbits for the known planets as well as the sun in such a way as to explain the observed motions of the planets with Earth retaining its role at the center of the "universe". It was wrong of course, but it was a difficult and significant geometric exercise.

http://physics.uoregon.edu/~soper/orbits/ptolemy.html

 

[Bacle2]

This is way overstating the case. Yes, it's true the Pythagoreans keel-hauled one of their own for discovering irrational numbers (at least as far as we are able to tell) but after that things went much more smoothly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number#History

Right; I was referring more to the general beliefs of some of the pythagoreans and platonists, about other wolds ( the forms, mystical beliefs of some pythagoreans ,etc.)

I don't buy this argument. Not in the case of empire so safe and rich they could arrange sea battles in the Colosseum.

.

I was referring more to the beginning of the empire. But you're right in that once they became richer they did not transition into a more scientific approach.