Cracking tales of historical mathematics and its interplay with science, philosophy, and culture. Revisionist history galore. Contrarian takes on received wisdom. Implications for teaching. Informed by current scholarship. By Dr Viktor Blåsjö.
https://intellectualmathematics.com/blog/
Singing Euclid: the oral character of Greek geometry
Greek geometry is written in a style adapted to oral teaching. Mathematicians memorised theorems the way bards memorised poems. Several oddities about how Euclid’s Elements is written can be explained this way. Transcript Greek geometry is oral geometry. Mathematicians memorised theorems the way bards memorised poems. Euclid’s Elements was almost like a song book or … Continue reading Singing Euclid: the oral character of Greek geometry