Talk:Timeline of mathematics

RE: Copyright Permissions on this and other timelines developed by Niel Brandt, the following email exchange took place:

"Niel,

I saw your timeline pages, and thought they would be really valuable for the wikipedia project (http://www.wikipedia.com). Do you have any problem with someone posting them there (and setting up links)? Wikipedia uses GNU Free Document License, so your work may be redistributed by anyone in any format.

Thanks,

David Levinson"

To which was responded

"hi,

this is fine with me. good luck!

cheers, niel"

Source of timelines is various (they have been reproduced across the web). One is http://www.gsu.edu/other/timeline

-- user:DavidLevinson

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Hey Axel what should be done furthermore to correct the following timeline remark, you've left off:

• 1806 - Jean-Robert Argand[?] associates vectors with complex numbers and studies complex number operations in geometrical terms,

When I shall know what is wrong with it, I shall try to fix it. Best regards. --XJamRastafire

Wessel did the same thing 9 years earlier, so I don't see the point of repeating it. AxelBoldt 03:58 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)

But I guess it is a good and courteous custom to mention J-R Argand's work anyway. This story regarding things in complex at their beginnings, as it seems, is not just nebulous, but also interesting and instructive. Very similar is the story of the divergence theorem and probably many, many others (e.g. the Poiseuille's law from hydrodynamics...) --XJamRastafire

I'm not a big fan of the repeated mentionings of the divergence theorem either. There are more than enough important events for the timeline; I don't think it's significant enough if someone rediscovers an already known theorem. This could be mentioned in the history section of the theorem's article, but for the timeline I think it's overkill. AxelBoldt 03:19 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

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Where does this information come from?

• 4500 BC[?] - Carnac[?], Brittany, first use of the triple 3-4-5
• 2450 BC[?] - Egypt, first systematic method for the approximative calculation of the circle on the basis of the Sacred Triangle 3-4-5
• 1650 BC - Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, copy of a lost scroll from around 1850 BC, a great and still widely misunderstood synopsis of early geometry and mathematics (www.seshat.ch)

AxelBoldt 01:00 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

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I removed this:

• 1744 - Leonhard Euler shows the existence of transcendental numbers,

because transcendental number claims it was Liouville in 1844.

I have seen some references suggesting that Euler proved that e was irrational in 1744. An interesting question is when transcendentals were first considered or defined. Chas zzz brown 08:20 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

Answering my own question (bad form I know); according to [1] (http://members.aol.com/jeff570/t),

According to Paulo Ribenboim in My Numbers, My Friends, "LEIBNIZ seems to be the first mathematician who employed the expression 'transcendental number' (1704)."

Euler used transcendental in his 1733 article in Nova Acta Eruditorum titled "Constructio aequationum quarundam differentialium quae indeterminatarum separationem non admittunt":

Now there are kinds of constructions, which can be called transcendental, which arise in solving differential equations and cannot be transformed into algebraic equations.

Cheers Chas zzz brown 03:48 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)