Tuesday 29 January 2013

ANCIENT MATHEMATICIANS

There were uncountable number of men and women who have proved their intelligence through Mathematics. Let us learn about a few of these famous ANCIENT MATHEMATICIANS that have made an impact in the world of mathematics.

1.  EUCLID (322-275 BC) Greece/Egypt
 He founded the school of mathematics at the great university of Alexandria. He was the first to prove that there are infinitely many prime numbers; he stated and proved the Unique Factorization Theorem and he devised Euclid's algorithm for computing gcd.  Although notions of trigonometry were not in use, Euclid's theorems include some closely related to the Laws of Sines and Cosines. Euclid ranks #14 on Michael Hart's famous list of the Most Influential Persons in History. The Elements introduced the notions of axiom and theorem was used as a textbook for 2000 years and in fact is still the basis for high school geometry, making Euclid the leading mathematics teacher of all time. Some think his best inspiration was recognizing that the Parallel Postulate must be an axiom rather than a theorem.  
 
2. ARCHIMEDES (287-212 BC) Greek domain
Archimedes is universally acknowledged to be the greatest of ancient mathematicians. He studied at Euclid's school (probably after Euclid's death), but his work far surpassed the works of Euclid. Archimedes made advances in number theory, algebra, and analysis, but is most renowned for his many theorems of plane and solid geometry. He was first to prove Heron's formula for the area of a triangle. One of his most remarkable and famous geometric results was determining the area of a parabolic section, for which he offered two independent proofs, one using his Principle of the Lever, the other using a geometric series. His original achievements in physics include the principles of leverage, the first law of hydrostatics, and inventions like the compound pulley, the hydraulic screw, and war machines. Archimedes proved that the volume of a sphere is two-thirds the volume of a circumscribing cylinder. He requested that a representation of such a sphere and cylinder be inscribed on his tomb. Archimedes discovered formulae for the volume and surface area of a sphere, and may even have been first to notice and prove the simple relationship between a circle's circumference and area. For these reasons, π is often called Archimedes' constant. Although Newton may have been the most important mathematician, and Gauss the greatest theorem prover, it is widely accepted that Archimedes was the greatest genius who ever lived. Yet, Hart omits him altogether from his list of Most Influential Persons: Archimedes was simply too far ahead of his time to have great historical significance.

3. PYTHAGORAS (570-495 BC) Samos
Since the fourth century AD, Pythagoras has commonly been given credit for discoveringthe Pythagorean The, a theorem in geometry that states that in a right-angled triangle the area of the square on the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of the other two sides—that is, a^2 + b^2 = c^2.
While the theorem that now bears his name was known and previously utilized by the Babylonians and Indians, he, or his students, are often said to have constructed the first proof. It must, however, be stressed that the way in which the Babylonians handled Pythagorean numbers implies that they knew that the principle was generally applicable, and knew some kind of proof, which has not yet been found in the cuneiform sources. Because of the secretive nature of his school and the custom of its students to attribute everything to their teacher, there is no evidence that Pythagoras himself worked on or proved this theorem. For that matter, there is no evidence that he worked on any mathematical or meta-mathematical problems. The earliest known mention of Pythagoras's name in connection with the theorem occurred five centuries after his death, in the writings of Cicero and Plutarch.

                                                                                                                                       Raihana Aiman

Glee for Math Nerds!


hi hello there!
so this is just a video i found on the internet that combines my two (you could say) favourite things which are glee (yes, glee. even though it's such a bad tv show) and maths! yay!
and if you don't watch glee then i'm sorry if you couldn't understand what he's talking about because i certainly do ha ha ha.
so yeah okay enjoy and stuff

syairah

Thursday 24 January 2013

Welcome to 4SD's Modern Math Blog

Hi readers, welcome to 4SD Sri Aman's Modern Math Blog. This blog is going to be filled with information, fun facts and many more interesting things such as jokes to make studying Maths more fun and simple. Hope you will enjoy reading this blog written by cool students all year round :)

Enjoy!
-Cheryl Chin-