In order to get full credit in the open ended questions, you need to spend some time reflecting upon and writing your answers. In most of these problems, the probability that a one-sentence answer will get full credit is close to 0 (and so will be what you learn from the exercise)
Make sure you show all your work on the problems that require it so. Otherwise, even if you give a correct answer, if you do not explain how you obtained it, you'll get very little or no credit.
It would be great if you discussed ideas with your classmates. The write-up, however, must be done individually.
Recall that the slides of the lectures can be found here.
Problems
Recall that in class we discussed mathematics in the following six societies: Ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Mayan, Hellenic and Ancient and Medieval Chinese and Indian. Answer each of the questions below for each of these societies.
If possible, give an example of a mathematical statement with explanation/proof/justification that was given to establish its truth. If not possible, that is, if there is no mathematical statement with justification, give only the mathematical statement.
Explain at least one of the reasons, purposes or motivations that led these societies to do mathematics.
What type of number systems did they use? For each society, what was the impact of its number system on its mathematics? Did that number system facilitate computations?
Go to the Simons Center Iconic Wall, take a selfie with the wall as a background and take a photo of one (or more!) diagram related to the history of mathematics. Include the photos in your homework with a short explanation of the diagram.
Simons Center Iconic Wall - Photo credit: Simons Center
