Thursday, July 6 2000
Quiz 1
A cord with knots. (Osserman, page 4).
Pythagoras (or one of his followers) stated the theorem in general and gave a proof for it. Implicitly it was well known already to the Egyptians and Babylonians. (Osserman, page 4).
Thales of Miletus. (Lecture #2, 7/5/00)
The Chinese number system is superior: it is more systematic and there are less and shorter words for numbers. (Dehaene, page 102-106).
It was mentioned because around that time people started to settle, thus having more time and more needs for mathematics. The last ice age was 12000-10000 B.C. (Lecture #2, 7/5/00)