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1900 BCE
Plato's Philosophy of Mathematics
The Babylonians of the Old Empire created stone tablets that demonstrated their knowledge of how to compute the sides of right-angled triangles. (Note: The exact date is unknown. According to Alberto Martinez, the tablets were created between 1900 and 1600 BCE.) -
700 BCE
Irrational Numbers- Manava
Indian mathematician Manava publishes his idea that square roots of numbers such as 2 and 61 cannot be determined. -
500 BCE
Plato's Philosophy of Mathematics
Pythagoras passed away. He was a religious cult leader that, over the next several thousand years, would be accredited numerous mathematical discoveries, healing miracles, and achievements in the sciences. He is commonly claimed to have proved the hypotenuse theorem, yet there is no proof that this exists, and very few references to his work exist shortly following his death. Wide acclaim predominantly exist several centuries after death. -
450 BCE
Irrational Numbers- Hippasus
The discovery of irrational numbers is often attributed to Hippasus, but there is a lot of controversy around this. More information can be found in this document
https://docs.google.com/a/mix.wvu.edu/document/d/194zTEtSSQSB3wp1Qc3gKjMhZFYT0HDQOt4YU7362vvc/edit?usp=sharing -
380 BCE
Plato's Philosophy of Mathematics
Plato wrote Meno, a dialogue that narrates a discussion between Socrates and Meno. Socrates brings up numerous topics, asking an 'expert' to explain their meaning, yet finding out that neither he nor the expert knows the true meaning of the term. Socrates and Meno arrive at the realization that they do not know what virtue means, but at least they now know that they do not know. -
360 BCE
Plato's Philosophy of Mathematics
Plato wrote Book 7 of The Republic, a passage commonly referred to as the Allegory of the Cave. In it, Plato makes extensive commentary on perspective, education, and his philosophy on mathematics. See the following link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19AzLJopLUKtiWpGEhvi_c2RmYIR-93ttuLKe65QBseo/edit?usp=sharing -
250 BCE
Plato's Philosophy of Mathematics
Euclid finished The Elements, a mathematical work that discusses the hypotenuse theorem and includes multiple proofs, one of which is depicted here. Euclid referenced several students of Plato in this work. An interesting note is the lack of references to Pythagoras, which is curious, as he had supposedly discovered and proved the hypotenuse theorem. -
250 BCE
Infinitely Small
Archimedes states that "The multitude of lines in a figure is infinite" -
160
Revolutions in Astronomy -- Ptolemy Creates Almagest
Ptolemy creates Almagest, the only surviving ancient treatise on astronomy. From this text stems the concept of a Ptolemaic Universe. -
628
Paradoxes of Division-Brahmagupta(John Bard)
Indian mathematician stated that 0/0 is 0. -
800
Irrational Numbers- Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam
Egyptian mathematician Abu Kamil Shuja ibn Aslam was the first to accept irrational numbers as solutions to quadratic equations or as coefficients in an equation. -
840
Al-Kindi
Al-Kindi uses statistics to decipher encrypted messages based on frequency analysis. -
874
Irrational Numbers- Al-Mahani
Persian mathematician Al-Mahani examined and classified quadratic irrationals and cubic irrationals in his commentaries on Book 10 of The Elements. -
1150
Paradoxes of Division-Bhaskara(John Bard)
Argued that a quantity divided by zero yields an infinite quantity. -
1543
Revolutions in Astronomy -- Copernicus publishes “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies”
Copernicus publishes his book “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies,” and describes the universe to be heliocentric (sun centered). This was the first serious challenge to the long accepted geocentric model developed over a thousand years ago. -
Infinitely Small
Galileo discovers how fast objects fall to the ground and sets the foundations for finding instantaneous speed. -
Wegener and Continental Drift
Abraham Ortelius, a Flemish cartographer, noticed that the coastlines of the continents fit together; he suggested that they were once connected. -
Period: to
Species, Monsters and Things in Between
Taxonomy, the study of naming, identifying and classifying living organisms, is introduced. -
Revolutions in Astronomy -- Galileo Points His Telescope to the Sky
[Galileo points a telescope at the sky for the first time.]https://docs.google.com/a/mix.wvu.edu/document/d/1-DEdhtgM7RQzL3a3inR3qMKg3UU8AuXWmGE0WsEsYp4/edit?usp=sharing -
Revolutions in Astronomy -- Kepler's Laws of Motion
Kepler develops his three famous laws of planetary motion -
Famous Gamblers
Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat lay the groundwork for probability theory while contemplating a gambling problem. -
James Ussher - Age of the Earth
James was a priest that calculated the age of the Earth based on the idea of the "New Earth" or a young earth essentially. He did this by counting up the "begats" to come up with the birth of Earth around 4004 BCE -
Wegener and Continental Drift
Nicolas Steno published De Solido Intra Solidum Naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus to discuss how solids, such as fossils or minerals, could be found within other solids (rocks). -
Infinitely Small
In the 1660's Newton began to formulate calculus and worked with infinitely small numbers. -
Revolutions in Astronomy -- Newton's Principia Mathematica is published
Isaac Newton’s Principia is published, describing gravity and planetary orbits. -
The Law of Large Numbers
Jacob Bernoulli publishes what is known as the Law of Large Numbers in "Ars Conjectandi" -
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Species, Monsters and Things in Between
Carl Linnaeus introduced his system of organizing living things. He created a hierarchical system of classification with binomial nomenclature. -
Benoit de Maillet - Age of the Earth
Maillet was a french diplomat and natural historian that calculated the age of the Earth in a very interesting way. What he saw was declining sea levels year after year and estimated based on that rate that the Earth was roughly two billion years old. -
Irrational Numbers- Johann Heinrich Lambert
Johann Heinrich Lambert proved that pi cannot be a rational number. -
Paradoxes of Division-Leonhard Euler
The Swiss mathematician gave the result that a quantity divided by 0 gives infinity in his textbook "Complete Introduction to Algebra." -
Infinitely Small
Leonard Euler gives a proof that .999=1 -
Gauss Doubts Euclid
Carl Friedrich Gauss receives a letter from Ferdinand Karl Schweikart in which Schweikart lays out his ideas of “Astral Geometry”. These ideas align with Gauss’s own thoughts about an “Anti-Euclidean Geometry”, but neither are willing to publish their work. -
Darwin's Path to Evolution, Questions and Evidence (Emily Hummell)
Darwin studied Paley’s Natural Theology, noting the way the design of animals’ features suits their functions. -
Janos Bolyai Develops a New Geometry
Janos Bolyai writes to his father, Farkas Bolyai, who had also investigated the truth of Euclid’s fifth postulate, saying that he has made a groundbreaking discovery and developed a new system of geometry. -
Nikolai Lobachevsky Gives a Lecture on New Geometry
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Paradoxes of Division-Martin Ohm
Argued that division by 0 is meaningless, and he advised his readers to "Never divide by 0." -
Darwin's Path to Evolution, Questions and Evidence (Emily Hummell)
Darwin's voyage brings him to the Galapagos Islands via the HMS Beagle. Read more here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bjLr31CfWNCdx0J8qrxctRcX_z20HJbi8eU4UQjRHYI/edit?usp=sharing -
Darwin's Path to Evolution, Questions and Evidence (Emily Hummell)
Darwin makes the comment about the various modifications of the Galapagos finches, eight years after becoming convinced that evolution exists. -
William Thompson a.k.a. Lord Kelvin - Age of the Earth
Lord Kelvin was an extremely respected and accomplished academic that came up with the laws of thermodynamics and used them to try and calculate the age of the Earth based on the cooling of its outer crust. His estimate came in around 100 million years with a lower bound of 20 million and an upper bound of 400 million years. -
Species, Monsters and Things in Between
Charles Darwin claims that species are indefinable since they haven't been fixed since creation. -
Darwin's Path to Evolution, Questions and Evidence (Emily Hummell)
Origin of Species is published, leaving out any reference to the Galapagos finches due to Darwin’s lacking observations of them. -
Discovery of X-rays
German Physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovers a ray that travels through solid wood or flesh and yield photographs of living people's bones; he called them x-rays. This discovery earns him the first Noble laureate in physics in 1901. -
Discovery of Becquerel Rays
Months after Roentgen's discovery of x-rays, French physicist Henri Becquerel reports compounds of uranium emit rays that show up on photographic plates to the French Academy of the Sciences. Despite this discovery eventually leading into a larger understanding of atoms and a change in the why the scientific community thinks, it was initially ignored by the community as most scientists turned their focus towards Roentgen's x-rays. -
Marie Curie's Discovery of Radium and Polonium, and the events leading up to it.
In this extended entry, Marie Curie's research on uranium, pitchblende, and chalcocite are discussed alongside her hypothesis that helped to shift the community away from thinking that atoms were the most elementary particle there is. https://docs.google.com/a/mix.wvu.edu/document/d/1H7mtXqQ6sYh-vm34KXxggZEH0Gd0wSgiewxeptW2Nh8/edit?usp=sharing -
Nobel Prize Recipients (1903 & 1911)
In 1903, Marie and Pierre Curie, alongside Becquerel, receive the Nobel Prize for Physics. In 1911, Marie Currie receives the Noble Prize for Chemistry. -
A New Element
Marie Curie confirms that Radium is an element. -
Betren Border Bollwood - Age of the Earth
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Non-Euclidean Geometry Finds Application
Einstein makes use of Riemann’s formulation of different geometries based on different assumptions in his theory of gravity. This theory greatly increases the accuracy of a variety of astronomical calculations, making non-euclidean much more widely accepted. -
Wegener and Continental Drift
The German meteorologist Alfred Wegener suggested that the continents were once joined together.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/161FpBaGEVdRe9-37BMbAT0F563MAElm-zSrXXxM-8WY/edit -
Wegener and Continental Drift
The Swedish botanist Eric Hultén used plant evidence to support the theory of Beringia, a land bridge connecting present day Alaska to Russia. This theory was commonly used to argue the continental drift theory. -
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Willard Libby - Age of the Earth
Libby was an American physical chemist most known for inventing one of the most accurate dating methods known to the modern world. Libby discovered a way to date an object (rock/fossil/etc.) based on the percentage of organic carbon inside it. This process is known as Carbon Dating. -
Wegener and Continental Drift
Harry Hess developed the idea of seafloor spreading, which eventually lead to the modern plate tectonic theory, supporting the continental drift theory. -
Thorp Writes the Book on Betting
"Beat the Dealer" by Edward O. Thorp is published, causing vast changes to casino blackjack.* -
Darwin's Path to Evolution, Questions and Evidence (Emily Hummell)
Zoo specialists could not identify the origins of the Galapagos tortoises by their shells as the locals had claimed when Darwin visited in the 1830s. This points to the idea that Darwin did not use them as evidence for evolution. -
The Monty Hall Problem
The Monty Hall Problem goes viral following a letter in the "American Statistician". -
Paradoxes of Division-James Anderson
Pioneered a form of arithmetic known as transreal arithmetic. In this system of numbers a quantity divided by 0 is infinity, a negative number divided by zero is a negative quantity, and 0 divided by 0 a number known as nullity.
For a more robust discussion of transreal arithmetic and James Anderson's contributions to the topic, please refer to the extended response at the following link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RQai1Q2W9gTZVOUpWGBX7TnvE1bsOc4JfJSvsvpFOW0/edit
