Blog Post #3 – Crest of the Peacock

I found this reading to be quite insightful! It shed light on math history, and brought forth some surprising revelations. I’ve heard stories of British and European empires and their dominance over other civilizations and societies. I found it surprising that they even did this with mathematic history, with the view being that Europeans inherited mathematic knowledge from Greece, ignoring contributions of other societies. I was also surprised to learn about the progress the Arabs and Indians made, and the fact they even collaborated together. The book mentions that the Arabs invited Indian scientists to Baghdad - fascinating! It seems crazy to me that they would’ve been able to exchange information across countries at this time, or even be made aware of each other’s research/progress given the lack of technology. Finally, I was surprised to learn about how advanced the math these ancient societies were using, even hundreds and thousands of years ago! I think it’s incredible how instrumental the Mayans were to our understanding of astronomy, and that Indians had used trigonometric sine functions so long ago!