Makayla Edwards' History of Mathematics Timeline

By Maedwards
  • 2000 BCE

    First Use of Place Value Notation

  • 1650 BCE

    Rhind or Ahmes Mathematical Papyrus Was Written

  • 580 BCE

    Pythagoras of Samos

    Lived from 580-500 BC
    most well known for Pythagoras theorem
  • 300 BCE

    Euclid and The Elements

    The Elements is a mathematical treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria
  • 262 BCE

    Apollonius of Perge

    lived during 262-190 BC
    most known for works with conics
  • 200 BCE

    Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art

    Most influential Chinese math book Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art is a practical handbook of mathematics consisting of 246 problems intended to provide methods to be used to solve everyday problems of engineering, surveying, trade, and taxation.
  • 75 BCE

    Heron of Alexandria

    Lived from 75 - 10 BC
    Heron of Alexandria is best known in the history of mathematics for the formula, bearing his name, for the area of a triangle
  • 100

    Ptolemy

    Lived from 100 –170.
    He is known for his development of trig tables, that had many practical applications.
  • 200

    Diophantus

    Lived from 200-284.
    Diophantus is known for his works solving polynomial equations with several unknowns; these are now called Diophantine equations. Diophantine equations are still researched today.
  • 220

    Liu Hui

    Lived From 220-280.
    Hui solved linear equations using matrices and calculated pi correctly to 5 decimals.
  • 276

    Eratosthenes

    Lived from 276-195 BC
    Eratosthenes is most known for the “Sieve of Eratosthenes” method for identifying prime numbers.
  • 360

    Hypatia of Alexandria

    Lived from 360 - 415.
    Hypatia was a prominent astronomer and mathematician. She
    She was the first female mathematician, in which we have a detailed record of her life and work.
  • 384

    Aristotle

    He lived from 384-322 BC.
    Aristotle developed standardized logic and deductive reasoning.
  • 598

    Brahmasphuta

    Lived From 598 – 668.
    He worked on Algebra, Mensuration, and Indeterminate equations.
    Known for the first appearance of zero; he Interpreted nothingness as a number, unlike Greeks.
  • 780

    Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi

    Lived from approximately 780 to 850 He wrote at least six astronomical and mathematical works with the most important book being Al-Jabr Al-Jabr contained no solutions of zero
  • 876

    Earliest undoubted occurrence of zero

    In Ancient and Medieval India, the earliest undoubted occurrence of zero is in inscription in 876.
  • 1114

    Bhaskara

    Leading mathematician of the 12th century
    Wrote Lilavati
    Lived from 1114 to approximately 1185
  • 1202

    "Liber Abaci" was Published by Leonardo of Pisa

    Leonardo of Pisa was also known as Fibonacci.
    Liber Abaci is a treatise on algebraic methods and problems with strongly advocated for the use of Hindu-Arabic numerals.
    Fibonacci was considered one of the most original and capable mathematicians of the medieval Christian world, with much of his work being too advance for the time.
  • 1340

    Madhava

    Lived from 1340 – 1425.
    Madhava is most known for his usage of an infinite series to approximate trigonometric functions. Many centuries later, this was a significant step towards the development of calculus.
  • 1436

    Johann Müller (Regiomontanus)

    Lived from 1436-1476
    Could be the most influential mathematician of 15th century
    Wrote De Triangulis Omnimodis in approximately 1464, which was later published in 1533. The book consisted of systematic accounts of methods for solving triangles.
  • 1478

    Arte dell’Abbaco

    The Arte dell’Abbaco, published in 1478 in Europe and was the first printed book on arithmetic and the operation of the abacus in Europe
  • 1482

    The first printed version of Elements appeared in Venice in 1482

  • 1499

    Niccolò Tartaglia

    Lived From 1499-1557
    He independently develops a method for solving depressed cubic equations.
    He was also the first to apply mathematics to the path of cannonballs in his Nova Scientia; this is now known as ballistics.
  • 1540

    François Viète

    Lived From 1540 – 1603
    François Viète made significant advances in Algebra, and first introduced the use of letters to represent variables.

  • John Napier

    Began working on Logarithms in 1594
    He used base of 1/e
    Natural logarithms sometimes referred to as Napierian

  • Pierre de Fermat

    Lived from 1601-1665
    In 1636, Fermat discovered the fundamental principle of analytic geometry. His Introduction to Loci was published after 1665. He had a method for finding maxima and minima. He was even later referred to as discoverer of differential calculus. He became the founder of modern number theory.

  • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

    Lived From 1646-1716
    Had a method for Calculus developed independently of Newton
    Second only to Euler in building notation
    Created a lot of the Calculus notation we still use today

  • Jean Bernoulli

    Lived from 1667 - 1748.
    He was the inventor of calculus of variations.
    In 1696, he proposed the problem of the brachistochrone, and he is often given credit for exponential calculus.

  • Philosophiae Naturalis Principia

    Philosophiae Naturalis Principia was written by Issac Newton in 1687. It gave foundations of physics and astronomy in the language of pure geometry.

  • Leonhard Euler

    Lived from 1707-1783.
    He published more 500+ books and papers in his lifetime.
    He created the notation e, the pi symbol, i, the summation symbol, and f(x) just to name a few. He influenced notation, Analysis, Logarithms, Differential equations, Probability, Number Theory, Analytic geometry, and Graph theory.

  • Joseph-Louis Lagrange

    Lived from 1736 - 1813.
    Lagrange was Interested in algebra, analysis, and geometry.
    He created the notation for derivatives of higher orders.
    He created a new branch of math: Calculus of variations, with the name originating from notations by Lagrange.

  • Seven bridges of Königsberg solved

    In 1736, Leonhard Euler solves the problem of the Seven bridges of Königsberg, in effect creating graph theory

  • Pierre Simon Laplace

    Lived From 1749-1827.
    He worked to advance the theory of probability, and he was among the earliest mathematicians to show the area under a probability curve. Also worked on Laplace Transforms.

  • Carl Friedrich Gauss

    Lived from 1777-1855.
    Gauss was the greatest mathematician of his time.
    He wrote Disquisitiones Arithmeticae in 1801, and he extended the meaning of the word ‘integer’.

  • Joseph Liouville

    Lived from 1809 –1882.
    Liouville was the first to prove the existence of transcendental numbers using a construction of continued fractions in 1844.

  • George Boole

    He Lived from 1815-1864.
    Boole created Boolean algebra, which is considered the starting point of modern mathematical logic. This led to the development of computer science.

  • Ada Lovelace

    Lived from 1815 – 1852.
    She was mathematician and a writer. Along with Charles Babbage, she worked on the Analytical Engine, an early computer. Lovelace became the first computer programmer in history when she wrote the first algorithm to calculate Bernoulli numbers.

  • Arthur Cayley

    Lived from 1821-1895.
    Known for his work with modern group theory.

  • Charles Hermite

    Lived from 1822-1901.
    He is most known for his proof that e is a transcendental number, and he was the first to do so.

  • Bernhard Riemann

    Lived from 1826-1866.
    Riemann is known for his work with Non-Euclidean elliptic geometry and Riemannian geometry. He is also known for his hypothesis, the Riemann Hypothesis, which remains unproven.

  • Nikolai Lobachevsky published “On principles of geometry”

    Nikolai Lobachevsky lived from 1992 - 1856. This is considered the official birth of non-Euclidean geometry.
    This was the first geometry published built specifically in direct conflict of parallel postulate.

  • Richard Dedekind

    Lived from 1831-1916.
    In 1872, Dedekind gave a precise definiton of infinity.
    In 1879, he gave an explicit definition of a number field.

  • Georg Cantor

    Lived from 1845 – 1918
    Cantor is noted as the inventor of set theory and is also known for his work with infinity. He along with others lead the way in our understanding of infinity.

  • Henri Poincaré

    Lived from 1854-1912.
    Known for his Partial solution to “three body problem”, foundations of modern chaos theory, and the Poincaré conjecture

  • Formulaire de mathematiques

    In 1894, Giuseppe Peano wrote Formulaire de mathematiques, which developed a formalized language to contain not only mathematical logic but all of the most important branches of mathematics.

  • Principia Mathematica

    Principia Mathematica is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics, written by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North. It was published in 1910–1913. Principia Mathematica attempts to derive all mathematics truths from a well-defined set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic.

  • Alan Turing

    Lived From 1912-1954.
    Most known for breaking of the German enigma code and the Turing machine

  • Andrew Wiles

    Born in 1953.
    Andrew Wiles in most known for his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

  • ABC Conjecture proposed

    The ABC Conjecture was first proposed in 1985 by two mathematicians David Masser and Joseph Oesterlé.

  • Poincaré conjecture proved

    The Poincaré conjecture was proved by Grigori Perelman in 2003.