Upon my initial reading of this book, I am surprised by the Eurocentric presentation provided in figure 1.1. The figure attributes development of mathematics solely to Greeks and Europe. I am simply surprised that this was the kind of “facts” put into textbooks in European countries. I myself attended school in Asia for the early years of my childhood, and it was definitely not presented that way. I am Chinese, and while there was not an emphasis on history of mathematics in China, I know that China has a long winding history and developed many mathematical ideas independently from the west as there was little communication. Things like arithmetic, number system, Chinese Remainder Theorem are all notable examples, and there are recovered books and documents showing many mathematical ideas such as taxes, percentage, division, even measurements of pi, volume, area…etc. So drawing from my own experiences, the Eurocentric presentation is a shock. The second interesting point for me is ...
Thanks Ian! But you still need to post a personal blog about what you learned and took away from the project. Cheers!
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