To refine search, see subtopic Renaissance Art. Laterally related topics: The Neolithic Era, The Stone Builders, The Middle Ages, The 1600s, The 1800s, The 1700s, The 1400s, The 1500s, The Paleolithic Era, The 1900s, and The Late Bronze Age.
The Mathematics and the Liberal Arts pages are intended to be a resource for student research projects and for teachers interested in using the history of mathematics in their courses. Many pages focus on ethnomathematics and in the connections between mathematics and other disciplines. The notes in these pages are intended as much to evoke ideas as to indicate what the books and articles are about. They are not intended as reviews. However, some items have been reviewed in Mathematical Reviews, published by The American Mathematical Society. When the mathematical review (MR) number and reviewer are known to the author of these pages, they are given as part of the bibliographic citation. Subscribing institutions can access the more recent MR reviews online through MathSciNet.
Swetz, Frank J. Seeking Relevance? Try the History of Mathematics. Mathematics Teacher 77 (1984), 54--62.
Focuses on how the history of mathematics can be used to improve mathematics education. It can not only breath new life into the subject, but also allow students to better understand mathematics as a mode of inquiry. If students see mathematical ideas in other times [and in other cultures], they can appreciate the ideas better in our own. Swetz gives examples from the development of algorithms for arithmetic (including square roots). Ancient demonstrations of mathematical ideas, such as the "husan-thu" proof of the Pythagorean theorem from China can be conceptually more suitable for students than more synthetic modern ones. Ancient "homework problems" from Babylonia, China, and Medieval Italy can be more interesting than the more dry and formulaic modern equivalents. (See Swetz, Was Pythagoras Chinese? for many interesting examples from China.) Although the author doesn't discuss this, the Chinese problems in surveying led to interesting questions in algebra, with fourth and higher degree equations. Swetz discusses how Descartes' idea of a coordinate grid was earlier used by Renaissance artists, ancient Egyptian tomb painters, and various cartographers. Reprinted in Swetz, Frank J., From Five Fingers to Infinity. Closely related topics: Education, Arithmetic, Computation, China, Algebra, Analytic Geometry, Renaissance Art, Ancient Egypt, and Cartography.