Historical Topics in Mathematics for Middle School Teachers

SUMMER TERM 2004

READING ASSIGNMENTS WITH LINKS

Reading Sources:

Linked Biographies and Articles: O'Connor and Robertson's MacTutor History of Mathematics Topics Index

URLs of interest as noted

Historical Stories: "Mathematicians are People, Too, Volumes I and II," Reimer and Reimer (MAPT)

See class handouts for specific assignments

An overview of Egyptian mathematics
Egyptian numerals
An overview of Babylonian mathematics
Babylonian numerals
Mayan mathematics
Overview of Chinese mathematics
Chinese numerals
Overview of Indian mathematics
Indian numerals
A history of Zero
Pyramids, Olives and Donkeys-Thales (MAPT)
Euclid
The Teacher who Paid his Students-Pythagoras (MAPT)
The Man Who Concentrated Too Hard-Archimedes (MAPT)
Heron (MAPT)
Greek number systems
A history of Pi
A Woman of Courage Hypatia (MAPT)
Fibonacci
Math Forum's Golden Ratio/Fibonacci
Ron Knott's Fibonacci Numbers and the Golden Section
Thinkquest: The Fibonacci Series
Magician or Mathematician? Napier (MAPT)
Seeing isn't Believing Galileo (MAPT)
Fermat (MAPT)
Andrew Wiles (who proved Fermat's Last Theorem)
Count on Pascal Pascal (MAPT)
Math Forum Pascal's Triangle
The Short Giant Newton (MAPT)
The Blind Man Who Could See Euler (MAPT)
Banneker (MAPT)
The Professor Who Did Not Know Lagrange (MAPT)
Mathematics at Midnight Germain (MAPT)
The Teacher Who Learned a Lesson Gauss (MAPT)
Wolfram instructions for the construction of a regular 17-gon by ruler and compass
Ask Dr. Math: Construction of a 17-sided regular polygon (scroll down to find)
"Don't Let My Life be Wasted!" Galois (MAPT)
Lovelace (MAPT)
Kovalevsky (MAPT)
Life on an Obstacle Course Noether (MAPT)
Numbers Were His Greatest Treasure Ramanajan (MAPT)

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