Talk:Greek mathematics/Archive 1

Archive 1

Mathematics Collaboration of the Week

I started the article with a list of famous mathematicians. I'll do more tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week. If anyone can add to it, please do. ral315 03:51, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Any suggestions for structure?

== Intro ==

== Number ==
         - ratio, incommensurables

== Greek Geometry ==

         - 3 Problems

Please do not hesitate to change my edits --Eddie | Talk 08:55, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Number representation and units

Should this article address the question of number representation and units in Greek mathematics? For example (and excuse me if I'm asking the wrong questions): - How did the Greeks achieve so much using a sexagesimal (?) number system? - What place did zero occupy in the numbering system? - How did the Greeks understand prime numbers without using Base 10? Michaelmross 13:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the basics of their number system would be key for a complete article. — Laura Scudder ☎ 21:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Dates of References?

I know the books by Heath were originally published early in the 20th century; my copy says 1897, with a supplement written in 1912. Should the original dates of publication be included in the references? And also, I'm glad to see the history of science collaboration started again! SmaleDuffin (talk) 23:52, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I am fairly sure the date of publication of the version actually being referenced has to be the date included in the citation. That is necessary so that someone checking references can find the exact version cited. Otherwise changes in pagination or copy editing could cause confusion. Rusty Cashman (talk) 23:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and added original publication date in addition to that of edition being referenced, if only because I like to know how old the scholarship used is when reading an article. — Laura Scudder ☎ 19:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thats fine but please don't delete or replace references as you did with Boyer. If multiple versions of the same work are used as references they should all appear in the reference list. Besides the fact that if you replace one version with another it make life hard for editors who have been working on revisions using the original version. Rusty Cashman (talk) 04:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Oversight possibly needed

Okay, this is not my field, but in the interests of getting something going here, I picked up Boyer's History of Mathematics and Heath's Manual of Greek Mathematics. My goal is to start adding some more meat and improving the organization, but if I, as an outsider, start weighting the article in odd directions, please set me right. — Laura Scudder ☎ 20:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Irrelevant claim

From the article ... was one of the last great Greek mathematicians of antiquity.

Define last great greek math freak of antiquity. How many other mathematics exist we do not know? How much information has been modified or lost or sealed away - and with it the name? How many people claimed other work for their own? This is a false statement, as after him came Hypatia. How sure can you assume that Pappus is really a last great of his kind? As this is a big magnitude to consider, so a statement regarding an empirical not meassarable sum is irrelevant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia (Tales23 (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC))

Graphs

Perhaps adding new graphs will help make the article a tad bit more clear. If you're trying to differentiate between the types of mathematics it would help to have a better visual representation. And adding clarification to the current graph would also help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spaghettiman19 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I think getting the sources added in will help the page a lot. I think other than that it has a great lay out and I enjoyed reading it. Lizzygabbie (talk) 01:10, 3 February 2014 (UTC)