Glimpses 1
From Rhaworth
Glimpses of History: Olden Times
by Martin Huxley
First traces of Maths that we find,
Old bones in a cave left behind,
- With patterns of nicks,
- Babylonian tricks,
And the fruitful Papyrus of Rhind.
We don't have a board game of Thera's'
Chaturanga's from subsequent eras,
- But a race game is known,
- Bets and dice being thrown,
And its catchphrase, `Apekho s'ap'hieras!'.
[I take you off the Sacred Way. Chaturanga gave rise to chess and cards. The Drowned City of Thera is one source of the Atlantis story.]
"The squares on the legs as a pair
Add up to the underside square,"
- But PYTHAGORAS' battle,
- Root two is irrat'l,
No cattle were sacrificed there. (about 550BC)
"What ratio seen in the square
Does the side to diagonal bear?
- Can the numbers of GOD
- Be both even and odd?"
Impetuous student, beware! (about 550BC)
PYTHAGORAS' numbers were wholes
With losable, breathable souls,
- And the student who knew
- About square root of two
Was sent down, charged with kicking own goals. (about 550 BC)
The pentagon HIPPASOS saw
Has a small one inside when you draw
- The diagonal lines.
- Repetition defines
The irrational nature of tau. (thanks to K.M. SCHMIDT)
Doctor EUCLID the mathematician
Was also a noted magician.
- While hymning to Demeter
- He proved several lemmata,
And almost invented division. (about 300BC)
So EUCLID's first proof was acquired
By assumption of what was desired:
- "Either a or else b
- Is a product of p."
There's a modern text equally mired. (thanks to NARKIEWICZ)
"Did they make something fake for a crown?
It would take sort of `density' down…
- I've found it! Heureka!"
- He ran as a streaker
From his bath through the town with no gown. (ARCHIMEDES)
Was bubble bath known to the Greeks?
ARCHIMEDES relaxes and seeks
- An assay for the crown,
- Blowing foam up and down…
He'd've not found the answer for weeks. (about 220BC)
"Consider the flocks of the sun…"
Was how ARCHIMEDES begun.
- For counting the fleeces,
- Even ant'hyp'hairesis
Leaves plenty of work to be done. (about 220BC)
The ancient Sicilian Don,
ARCHIMEDES, could be living on.
- When his life should be spared,
- He went: "Halve it if paired,
If unpaired, go to 3n + 1". (212BC; the 'Syracuse Algorithm')
When forming an area mapping
With tangents and segments and capping,
- The historical Greeks
- Were constrained in techniques:
They had to avoid overlapping. (thanks to ROGERS)
How the Emperors exercise might,
What the West calls the move of a knight:
- Tread the Paces of Yu
- Around the Lo Shu
Magic square, South to North, left to right. (MING TANG 23)
LIU HUI, a name to recall,
Got pi with an error that's small.
- He was able to vary a
- Treatment of area
So triangles fill almost all. (about 300; thanks to ROGERS)
DIOPHANTUS's book: if you buy it,
Twelve chapters, then everything's quiet;
- HYPATIA's edition
- Cut short by sedition,
With the editor killed in a riot. (415)
The inscrutable Chinaman SSUN TSU
Gave a rule for when someone presents two
- Remainder conditions
- With co-prime divisions.
You pronounce him however you wants to. (about 450; but see CHIN CHIU-SHAO)
When you look for a name for your thesis
On how to take numbers to pieces,
- There's more satisfaction
- From "cut-taker fraction"
Than original "ant'hyp'hairesis". (BHATTACHARYA, EUDOXUS)
The story of solving the PELL:
The Greeks had techniques, but they fell.
- BHATTACHARYA was random,
- Then BHASKARA tandem;
Till LAGRANGE, "if it works, all is well".
A merchant asleep in his tent
At a halt on the road to Tashkent
- Awoke from his slumbers
- With negative numbers,
So, rather than coming, he went.
He set Algebra off on its way,
But the name AL-GORITHMI today
- Was taken in vain
- As "Maths is a pain",
In Greek "ho arithmos algeî". (AL-KHOWRIZMI, about 825)
The son of BONACCIO knew
What one pair of rabbits can do,
- Their awful potential
- To grow exponential,
First England, Australia too. (FIBONACCI 1202)
CHIN CHIU-SHAO fulfilled many goals,
Wrote a Treatise on Maths in nine scrolls;
- In his elegant library,
- Furnished by bribery,
He took wine, women, pork casseroles. (1247)
Who first combined residue classes?
In a country here nothing new passes,
- CHIN gave Master SONG
- His discovery (Strong
'Proximation), and called for the lasses. (1247)
A name, all the same, what is in?
Consider what happened to CHIN.
- Although he attained a
- High rank, his remainder
'S `Chinese', with no credit to him. (1247)
Was MADHAVA first to define
The series for cosine and sine?
- Such command of technique!
- In the land of the leek,
In his name, ev'ry week, let us dine! (at the Madhav; about 1400)
Has the magic departed from squares
Since DÜRER depicted black cares?
- No emperor paces,
- No astrologer traces,
No lawgivers leap from their chairs. (1514; MINGTANG, KEPLER, FRANKLIN)
