MATH 110 -- Topics in Mathematics: Mathematics Through Time

Where did the mathematical techniques and theorems you learned in high school 
come from and why were they included in the courses you took?  Is mathematics 
"finished" or is it still changing and developing?  This course will examine 
these and other questions through a detailed historical study of several central 
topics such as number systems and arithmetic, plane geometry, and elementary algebra.  
We will make a close study of some important sources, including the surviving records 
of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics, Book I of the Elements of Euclid and others. 
We will also see the ways those sources have inspired and contributed to more recent 
mathematical work on non-Euclidean geometries, abstract algebra and other areas of 
contemporary mathematics.  The course has no prerequisites beyond high school mathematics, 
but students considering it should be willing both to read and think about the history of 
mathematics and to engage in mathematical problem-solving on a regular basis.  
The only way to understand some of what our predecessors did is to retrace their
steps by considering the same questions they did from their point of view. 

Note:  The following students in the class of 2014 who took my Montserrat Seminar 
in 2010-2011 should not be allowed to register for this course, since there will be 
a substantial overlap:

Bostrom, Lucia
Cahn, Sarah
Caracciolo, Catherine
Finn, Daniel
Javaid, Muhammad
Kadlick, Kyle
Kasuba, Matthew
Ludwig, Astrid
Macomber, John
Marzo, Andrew
Nghiem, Xuan Ha
O'Hagan, Kaitlin
Pettinelli, Max
Santa Maria, Thomas
Sullivan, Kylee
Sutman, Kevin
Zona, Peter