Mayan Mathematics

Scribe Post For November 16,2009

Hello guys,this is Bea and I'm going to show you how the Aztecs math works.

While researching for Aztecs math I found it very unique because they used the system that included of hearts, hands and arrows they used this for recording numbers of members of the family and the amount of land they owned.

The study of these Hyroglyphic record shows that the Aztecs have their own calculating system help them figure out how many area of land the person owned and package that trust on a basic unit of distance measurement and smaller units shown by drawings of hands, hearts and arrows.

In Aztec their math is very important because they used their math every day,they used their calendar as we do,important to record like their hearts and arrows.

here's their calendar

Their calendar is very unique compare to our calendar.To measure tracts of taxable land,Aztec mathematicians had to develop their own specialized arithmetic,which has now been decoded.

Although their math is unique they have a numeration system like we do.

This is how their numeration system looks like.

Thank you,and hope you enjoy my scribe and at the same time i hope you learn something about Aztecs mathematics.

Scribe Post for November 13, 2009

Hi Guys ! Im Muriel and Im your scribe for today. Im researching about the Sumerians/Babylonians and their math.

As usual, other people are working on robotics and other people are working on the research. so here it goes....




Babylonian mathematics or Assyro-Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the peoples of Mesopotamia, from the days of the early Sumerians to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC.
Babylonian mathematical texts are plentiful and well edited. In respect of time they fall in two distinct groups: one from the Old Babylonian period which is 1830-1531 BC, the other mainly Seleucid from the last three or four centuries B.C. In respect of content there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Thus Babylonian mathematics remained constant, in character and content, for nearly two millennia. In contrast to the scarcity of sources in Egyptian mathematics, our knowledge of Babylonian mathematics is derived from some 400 clay tablets unearthed since the 1850s. Written in Cuneiform script, tablets were inscribed while the clay was moist, and baked hard in an oven or by the heat of the sun. The majority of recovered clay tablets date from 1800 to 1600 BC, and cover topics which include fractions, algebra, quadratic and cubic equations and the Pythagorean theorem. The Babylonian tablet YBC 7289 gives an approximation to accurate to five decimal places.

The Sumerians developed a complex system of metrology from 3000 BC. From 2600 BC, the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems. The earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period.

The Babylonians made extensive use of pre-calculated tables to assist with arithmetic.

Babylonian mathematicians also developed algebraic methods of solving equations.



I hope you learned something about my research and for the next scribe.. I choose Beatrix.
Thanks for reading!! (:

Scribe Post for November 5, 2009

Hello, this is Melanie (: I'm today's scribe, and I hope you'll learn from the information below (;

We had an ordinary day, like usual. The guys were doing the robot stuff, the the girls were doing their presentation research.

Honestly, I'm really behind on my work, so I'm trying super hard to catch up.

For almost three classes, I just realized (I mean, Mr.B realized) that I was researching on a website that was way off my grade level. So... he showed me this other one, that made way more sense that the previous one. Thanks Mr.B (;

By the way, I'm researching on the Indian Civilization.

Well, these are some things I learned in class today:

1. The Harappans were the first "known" people to use numbers (3000 BC).

(HINT-HINT: I put "known" in quotation marks, because that's all the information we have so far. So, there is a possibility that there were earlier people that have used numbers, but we don't have any proof of it being recorded.)

2.

a) Around 3000 BC, people in India began using the "counting tokens" that people were "already" using in West Asia.

(HINT-HINT: The people in India didn't invent the counting tokens.)

b) "Counting Tokens" are clay tokens, of many different shapes and sizes, that represent something.

eg. a little clay ball = pig

a little clay pyramid = chicken

2 little clay balls and 5 little clay pyramids = 2 pigs and 5 chickens

Well, those are only some facts. I'm going to continue my research, and hopefully you'll understand my presentation later on.

And sorry that there aren't any pictures. It just won't let me drag them to their right place.

If you still don't understand, or you want to find more information about the above, click here.

Thanks for checking out my scribe, and please leave a comment.

By the way, for the next scribe, I choose Muriel (:

Scribe Post for Nov. 02, 2009

Heey! Today Im going to talk about Greeks and their math.

Here it goes ..

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Did you guys know that the word "mathematics" itself derives from the Ancient Greek word "mathema", meaning "subject of instruction". The study of mathematics for its own sake and the use of generalized mathematical theories and proofs is the key difference between Greek mathematics and those of preceding civilization.

Greeks had very clumsy ways of writing down numbers, they didn't like algebra. They found it very hard to write down equations or number problems. Instead, Greeks mathematicians were more focused on geometry, and used geometric methods to solve problems that you might use algebra for.

Greek mathematicians were also very interested in proving that certain mathematical ideas were true. So they spent a lot of time using geometry to prove that things were always true, even though people like the Egyptians and Babylonians already knew that they were true most of the time anyway.

Here are some of the Greek mathematicians :

• Pythagoras
  
• 
  

• Aristotle

• Thales
  



• Archimedes




• Anaxagoras




• Euclid




• Aristarchus

Greek mathematics constitutes a major period in the history of mathematics, fundamental in respect of geometry and the idea of formal proof. Greek mathematics also contributed importantly to ideas on number theory, mathematical analysis, applied mathematics, and, at times, approached close to integral calculus.

Thats all the information that I've got and Ive learned about my research. Hope you guys learned something too. Sorry for the mistakes. I choose MELANIE DALIGDIG to be the next scribe ;)