| Date | Class Topic | Readings |
|---|---|---|
| 1/26 | Course introduction | |
| 1/28 | Mathematical thinking and human culture | TCOTP Chapter 2 |
| 1/31 | Conceptions of time, cycles and modular arithmetic | ME, Chapter 2, 3 |
| 2/2 | Introducing the ancient Maya and their mathematics | ME, Chapter 3 |
| 2/4 | Mayan time reckoning from the Dresden Codex | ME, Chapter 3, TCOTP Chapter 2 |
| 2/7 | The Maya ``tzolkin,'' ``Calendar Round,'' and Long Count | ME, Chapter 3 |
| 2/9 | Time in Maya culture | ME, Chapter 3 |
| 2/11 | Maps and models (Problem Set 1 due) | ME, Chapter 4 |
| 2/14 | More on maps and models | Start reading C -- Prologue |
| 2/16 | Collapse -- the cases of Easter Island and other Polynesian islands | C, Chapter 2, 3 |
| 2/18 | Collapse -- the case of the Maya (Problem Set 2 due) | C, Chapter 5 |
| 2/21 | Lessons for us? | C, Chapters 14-16 |
| 2/23 | Mathematics and games | Course homepage |
| 2/25 | More on mancala games (Paper 1 due) | |
| 2/28 | Mosaics of the Alhambra, M.C. Escher | Course homepage |
| 3/2 | Symmetry and the classification of frieze patterns and tesselations | Course homepage |
| 3/4 | More on symmetry in visual art (Problem Set 3 due) | ME, Chapter 7 |
| 3/7,9,11 | No class -- Spring Break | |
| 3/14 | Symmetry and the music of J.S. Bach | Course homepage |
| 3/16 | Are artists like Escher and musicians like Bach ``doing mathematics?'' | Course homepage |
| 3/18 | Midterm Exam | |
| 3/21 | The standard picture(s) of mathematical history, again | TCOTP, Chapter 1 |
| 3/23 | Towards a non-"Eurocentric" history of mathematics | TCOTP, Chapter 1 |
| 3/25 | Ancient mathematics in China | TCOTP, Chapter 6 |
| 3/28 | ``Classical'' Chinese mathematics | TCOTP, Chapter 6 |
| 3/30 | Other topics in Chinese mathematics | TCOTP, Chapter 7 |
| 4/1 | Evaluating Chinese mathematics (Problem Set 4 due) | TCOTP, Chapter 7 |
| 4/4 | Ancient Indian mathematics | TCOTP, Chapter 8 |
| 4/6 | ``Classical'' Indian mathematics | TCOTP, Chapter 9 |
| 4/8 | The mathematics of Kerala (Paper 2 due) | TCOTP, Chapter 10 |
| 4/11 | Mathematics in the Islamic world | TCOTP, Chapter 11 to page 475 |
| 4/13 | More on Islamic mathematics | TCOTP, Chapter 11, pages 475-496 |
| 4/15 | Trigonometry (Problem Set 5 due) | TCOTP, Chapter 11, pages 496-512 |
| 4/18 | Evaluating Islamic mathematics: just "transmission" or independent contributions? | TCOTP, Chapter 11 |
| 4/20 | Summing up Joseph's ideas on mathematics across cultures | |
| 4/22, 25 | No class -- Easter Break | |
| 4/27 | Final project presentations | |
| 4/29 | Final project presentations (Problem Set 6 due) | |
| 5/2,4,6 | Final project presentations | |
| 5/9 | Course wrap-up (Final Project papers due) |
Last modified: January 18, 2011