Don't make me regret this ...

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

To some extent, I'd like people in general, children in particular, to hear of someone, then be able to put them into context.

I think this is an impossible task, so in some senses I'm looking to see why and how it's impossible, perhaps then to decrease the scope and ambition, possibly to make something useful.

Eventually.

4/n, n=4

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@futzle Very nice idea ... thank you !!

CC: @e7_87

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@futzle A bit like William and Caroline Herschel.

CC: @e7_87

[robjlow@mathstodon.xyz]

@ColinTheMathmo also Mary Cartwright, a first in many ways, not nearly as well known as she deserves to be.

Mary Cartwright - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

[kat@is.burntout.org]

@ColinTheMathmo

Emmy Noether ?

[e7_87@mathstodon.xyz]

@ColinTheMathmo Oh I keep getting "pop" sounds from Mastodon... This is a hot thread.
---
For ancient mathematics, I would choose these 6 events/concepts, which some non-western heroes appeared:

* π (See Zu Chongzhi 429-500 from ancient China, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Hui%27s_%CF%80_algorithm)

* Quadratic Equation (many non-western mathematicians worked out the quadratic formula)

* Zeno's paradoxes ( you can see some mentions of Chinese philosophers on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes#Similar_paradoxes )

* Prime Numbers

* trigonometry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_trigonometry)

* Euclid's 'Elements' (have to say it is a great work in human math history)

I think a grand human history is hard not to be biased, so why not first test on our specialization and leave behind "Macchiavelli", "Shakespeare", "Alexander the Great", ....

---

Let me have some time for a partial list of important modern female heroines (and important non-binary)!

[mpark@mathstodon.xyz]

@ColinTheMathmo Top two I don't see on your list -

Hypatia (feminism, science vs religion)
Eratosthenes (I get so sick of hearing that Columbus proved the Earth was round)

[spacemagick@mastodon.social]

@ColinTheMathmo
The guy who made stripy pyjamas cool.
#maths

[mathematicalsynesthesia@hachyderm.io]

@ColinTheMathmo Colin, I teach a course at my institution called “Hi(dden)story of Mathematics” and I would be happy to share the outline of my course (and even some notes) and you could adapt some of it for your purposes.

The course is divided into units.

Unit 1 relates to ways in which our ancestors counted. We discussed the Babylonian (base 60) enumeration system, the Roman numerals, the Maya numerals (base 20), the Inca quipu (knot counting) and yupana (Inca abacus/calculator) the enumeration system of the ancient people of India, how it was adapted by the Arabs and the abacus and the Chinese counting rods.

Unit 2 relates to how ancient cultures develop ways to measure time (why does a circle have 360 degrees) along with storytelling exploring the significance/mysticism surrounding the numbers 7 and 12 (twelve tribes in Israel, twelve disciples of Jesus, twelve gods living in Olympus, twelve animals running the race for the jade emperor, twelve sons of Ishmael) why 13 is unlucky in Europe but not elsewhere, and how 13 is a sacred number instead for the Maya and the Egyptians for example. We also discuss the Maya calendar, the Jewish calendar and discuss how to convert between dates in those calendars and the Gregorian one.

Unit 3 relates to the origins on combinatorics and we discuss Acharya Pingala’s rules for enumerating verse structures in Sanskrit and realize Pingala described the binary enumerating system, the binomial coefficients and the Fibonacci numbers all based on verse structure of poetry. We connect this discovery (which happened in 400 BCE) to Fibonacci’s liber abaci and Blaise Pascal’s triangle and have a discussion on why we call them today Pascal’s triangle and Fibonacci numbers instead of Pingala’s triangle and numbers. In the end we decide that we should call them the Fibonacci-Pingala numbers and the Pascal-Pingala triangle (this eventually gets further renamed to Khayam-Pascal-Pingala triangle)

I will continue later…

[robertjackson58585858@masto.ai]

@kat @ColinTheMathmo

Absolutely!!

Emma Noether!

[xanna@mastodon.ie]

@ColinTheMathmo names like artists and composers come up all the time with no inherent way to connect them to an era. I'd pop Mozart, Bach, Van Gogh, Picasso etc etc on there, since kids (and adults) are still expected to know who they are without anyone bothering to tell them.

[pascaline@mastodon.nl]

@ColinTheMathmo

I see Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace are already mentioned, but not Melba Roy Mouton yet.

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@mike Ooo ... nice one.

The classic "nano-second"

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@e7_87 I'd like to have "Well known characters" included to help some people make the cross-connections.

Knowing that X was at the same time as Y can be a useful connection.

Example: Knowing that Alexander the Great was tutored by Aristotle, and that Aristotle was in Plato's Academy, is a nice connection.

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@xanna Exactly ... helping kids understand something of the connections between names they know, and names they could know, is part of the aim.

Thank you ...

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@mike

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@vulturus Absolutely Emmy Noether.

[ompaul@mathstodon.xyz]

@ColinTheMathmo Sophie Germain, Sofya Vasilievna Kovalevskaya

[ompaul@mathstodon.xyz]

@ColinTheMathmo this thread contains three brilliant stories and if you include the mathematics it is amazing

[colinthemathmo@mathstodon.xyz]

@pascaline Good shout:

Melba Roy Mouton
Katherine Johnson
Dorothy Vaughan
Mary Jackson

But the problem becomes one of the timeline and database becoming "too complete", and hence "overly complex" and thereby effectively inaccessible.

But absolutely, if choices are to be made, these people should be close to the top.