MATH 360 History of Mathematics

Mathematics is a living, changing subject whose truths, once identified, have remarkable staying power. In this course students analyze various episodes in the history of mathematics that illustrate how mathematical knowledge has developed over the years. Topics include: Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics, indigenous mathematics from outside of the Western tradition, the contributions of Euclid and Ancient Greek mathematics, the birth of calculus, and selected topics from the 19th and 20th centuries. [W]