history of mathematics - National STEM Centre

The Greeks
Chapter 4
More Greek
mathematics
Introduction
Ancient Greece covered an area much greater than modern Greece. It included most
of the Mediterranean, and certainly included Sicily, for example, which is where
Archimedes lived.
The Greeks had a classification of mathematics into four parts: arithmetic, (numbers
at rest), geometry, (magnitudes at rest), music (numbers in motion) and astronomy
(magnitudes in motion). In this unit you will consider only the arithmetic and the
geometry.
The mathematics of the Greeks developed during the thousand-year period from the
5th century BC to the 5th century AD.
Chapter 3 deals exclusively with Greek geometry, and the very strict rules to which
it had to conform. This geometry, and the text book written by Euclid, were to have
an enormous effect on mathematical and geometrical thinking, an influence which
continues to this day.
Chapter 4 is more of a miscellany, dealing with some other geometric concepts, and
with a number of other ideas involving numbers, square roots, algebra and area.
This unit is designed to take about 10 hours of your learning time. About half of
this time will be outside the classroom.
Work through the chapters in sequence.
There are summaries and further practice exercises in Chapter 12.
Mathematical knowledge assumed
some knowledge of methods of proof will be useful.
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