Related papers: The oldest example of compound interest in Sumer: …
In the middle of the third millennium BC the Sumerians must have noticed that the reciprocal of the number 7,in contrast to the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,and 6,could not be expressed by a finite sexagesimal fraction but it recurred every three…
In this paper I shall show that the formula 0:4,48 times circumference squared for the area of a circle, which occurs in a few Babylonian mathematical texts, can be traced back to at the latest the twenty-third century BCE.
In this paper, we chronologically recount several situations that have contributed to the development and formalization of the objects known as imaginary or complex numbers. We will begin by introducing the earliest documented knowing for…
In 1853 J. Sylvester introduced a family of double sum expressions for two finite sets of indeterminates and showed that some members of the family are essentially the polynomial subresultants of the monic polynomials associated with these…
Multiplication and exponentiation can be defined by equations in which one of the operands is written as the sum of powers of two. When these powers are non-negative integers, the operand is integer; without this restriction it is a…
The earliest origins of mathematics in the Indian subcontinent is generally dated around 800-500 BCE when the {\em Sulbasutras} are thought to have been written. In this article we suggest that mathematical thinking in South Asia, in…
In 1853 Sylvester introduced a family of double sum expressions for two finite sets of indeterminates and showed that some members of the family are essentially the polynomial subresultants of the monic polynomials associated with these…
Combinators were a key idea in the development of mathematical logic and the emergence of the concept of universal computation. They were introduced on December 7, 1920, by Moses Sch\"onfinkel. This is an exploration of the personal story…
A conjecture connected with quantum physics led N. Katz to discover some amazing mixed character sum identities over a field of q elements, where q is a power of a prime p > 3. His proof required deep algebro-geometric techniques, and he…
For a long time it has been known that in the 16th century the Swiss mathematician Jost B\"urgi found a new method for calculating sines, but no information about the details has been available. Recently a manuscript written by B\"urgi…
In 1970, Statistics giant, Bradley Efron, amazed the world by coming up with a set of four dice, let's call them A,B,C,D, whose faces are marked with [0,0,4,4,4,4], [3,3,3,3,3,3],[2,2,2,2,6,6],[1,1,1,5,5,5] respectively, where die A beats…
A conjecture connected with quantum physics led N. Katz to discover some amazing mixed character sum identities over a field of $q$ elements, where $q$ is a power of a prime $p>3$. His proof required deep algebro-geometric techniques, and…
A frequently cited theorem says that for n > 0 and prime p, the sum of the first p n-th powers is congruent to -1 modulo p if p-1 divides n, and to 0 otherwise. We survey the main ingredients in several known proofs. Then we give an…
Early 17th-century mathematical publications of Johann Faulhaber contain some remarkable theorems, such as the fact that the $r$-fold summation of $1^m,2^m,...,n^m$ is a polynomial in $n(n+r)$ when $m$ is a positive odd number. The present…
From the Rhind Papyrus and other extant sources, we know that the ancient Egyptians were very iterested in expressing a given fraction into a sum of unit fractions, that is fractions whose numerators are equal to 1. One of the problems that…
Late-Babylonian mathematics (450-100 BC), represented by some 60 cuneiform tablets from Babylon and Uruk, is incompletely known compared to its abundantly preserved, well-studied Old-Babylonian predecessor (1800-1600 BC). With the present…
We analyze the accuracy and the origin of a fourth root approximation that appeared in the 1886 Mathematical Tripos.
We give a short proof of the well-known Knuth's old sum and provide some generalizations. Our approach utilizes the binomial theorem and integration formulas derived using the Beta function. Several new polynomial identities and…
It is commonly believed that the ancient Romans were the first to create and use concrete. This is not true, as we can easily learn from the Latin literature itself. For sure, Romans were able to prepare high-quality hydraulic cements,…
The study of the mathematics and geometry of ancient civilizations is a task which seems to be very difficult or even impossible to fulfil, if few written documents, or none at all, had survived from the past. However, besides the direct…