The Crest of the Peacock Introduction

The first thing astonishing me is the fact that the term Greek refers to “a number of independent city-states that exhibit close ethnic or cultural affinities, and share a common language” in the context of mathematical history (Joseph 7). The term Greek is more like an allusion to “cosmopolitanism.” After reading Joseph’s explanation on the history of Greek mathematics, I believe that the early development of mathematics in 332 BC can be rendered by a metaphor of a crucible in which various mathematical traditions coming with Egyptian, Greek, Jews, Persians, Phoenicians, Babylonians and even scholars and traders from India fused into the so-called “Greek mathematics.” It might be misleading to speak of Archimedes and Diophantus (who were Alexandrian mathematicians) as Greek.

Secondly, I found it interesting that the contribution of other civilizations such as the Arabs, China and India is underestimated or even ignored in the ‘classical’ Eurocentric view of how mathematics developed over the ages. Ironically, as a teacher candidate who was born in China, my understanding of the history of mathematics had been established based on a flawed Eurocentric trajectory that was similar to the negative example exhibited in the book until I saw a more comprehensive chronicle on page 14 illustrating the spread of mathematical ideas down the ages and the interconnection between each culture. It is interesting for me to see that there is solid evidence showing the transmission of mathematical ideas between India and China around AD 600 (Joseph 17). India’s geographical location also made her become an important intersection of mathematical ideas coming from East and West. Teaching students the essential roles of those countries whose contributions used to be marginalized in the acknowledgement of mathematical history, can help students whose cultural backgrounds are related to those countries establish positive personal and cultural identity which is a part of BC’s curriculum core competencies.

Thirdly, I was surprised by the fact that “the principle of place value was discovered independently four times in the history of mathematics” (Joseph 22). It is hard to imagine that different place-value notational systems can thrive independently in different civilizations; and the place-value decimal system that we are using is just a small branch of the tree of place-value systems developed by human beings in different space and time. Back to our current didactic methods, the greatness and diversity of mathematical inventions cannot just be recorded in books, but should be invited into daily teaching, so as to stimulate students’ interests in learning mathematics. 

Reference:

Joseph, George Gheverghese. The Crest of the Peacock. Princeton University Press, 1991, pp.1-22. Crest of the Peacock intro math history.pdf - Google Drive