Comment by teleforce

Comment by teleforce 2 days ago

2 replies

If you read most of the mathematics articles you will be forgiven to think that there is no contributions made by the Middle Ages mathematicians ever. For some unknown reasons the writers will always mention and not missing Greek mathematicians contributions in this case Euclid, and then conveniently and ignorantly skipped about a thousand years by going straight to the Renaissance mathematicians in this particular case Gauss, who's the main character of the article.

delta_p_delta_x 2 days ago

> you will be forgiven to think that there is no contributions made by the Middle Ages mathematicians ever

This can be attributed at least in part to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the relative chaos that followed it in Central and Western Europe. Instead, Indian and Middle-Eastern mathematicians took over in the intervening millennium or so. Men like Āryabhaṭa, Brahmagupta, Al-Khwarizmi, et al made significant contributions to modern mathematical understanding.

  • User23 2 days ago

    The thing is that’s not really true. Fibonacci is one you’ve heard of, but there are plenty of other great medieval European mathematicians, such as Oresme, de Nemore, Wallingford, and Bradwardine.

    Oddly, there does seem to be something of a long running fad among popular historians to downplay the achievements of the middle ages. None of that of course is to say that the collapse of the empire in the west wasn’t devastating, especially in the early middle ages.