MTH 055 - Ancient Greek Mathematics

Course Units: 1

(Not Offered this Academic Year) Ancient Greek mathematicians invented the notion of abstraction (in mathematics and other fields), absolute precision, and proof. The approach to mathematics that we take today can be traced back to these Greek mathematicians. After examining some pre-Greek mathematical traditions, we study Greek mathematics, beginning with Thales and Pythagoras. Topics include the intellectual crisis caused by the discovery that not all magnitudes are commensurable; Plato and his academy; Euclid and his Elements; the three special construction problems (trisecting an angle, squaring a circle, doubling a cube); and the greatest of the Greek mathematicians, Archimedes. CC: QMR