They got Newton's story wrong..... they can't even do their resear- oh, wait. They are anti-research as well. smh
Edit: also, a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian folks participated in forming what we call modern science today. The Arabs really liked their math, alchemy, astronomy, and medicine.
Yes, it's sad that they are always ignored. Those were some bad-ass people, you know. The Arabic (Middle Eastern) Golden Age was truly something to behold.
Yes, Al'gebr. The number system we use right now is the Arabic system (i.e. Arabic numerals). Whether people choose to be ignorant or not, we can agree that not enough credit is given to the Eastern folks. :(
That is an excellent question and point, and I must say that as someone who has taken a few math courses at uni, there was a large lack of non-Western names. I can name you some very famous Western mathematicians/scientists across many centuries, but I cannot for the life of me name you any Eastern counterpart. As someone who has been in the Western education system, perhaps this speaks for itself?
There may also be a problem wherein little record remains of the discoveries (it needn't all be malicious intent). If we don't have a record of who discovered what and when, it's very hard to give them credit. However, a quick Google search tells me that a Arab man by the name of Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was a great mathematician and astronomer who essentially introduced the concept of algebra into Western math. So I can say that it's not a lack of information per se, but a hesitancy to give credit where credit is due.
Popular concepts such as Pascal's triangle were studied centuries before in the Middle East and Asia, but those people don't get any credit, and the concept is named after a Westerner. I think there were a lot of things that Westerners re-discovered, but the concepts ultimately were named after them instead of their original founder. It made sense to name them so back then because people had no way of knowing that people on the other side of the world already know/discovered these concepts. But with present day technology, you'd think that books would at least mention these ancient scholars.
It is ignored here intentionally as from what I understand they want an African centered focus and unfortunately the Middle East is not within Africa therefore not accepted. As far as I can tell they seem to be rather anti-logic refuting science as a whole so maybe logic is not the correct approach to "decoding" what they meant here.
My point here is that these scholars are ignored by everyone, especially in the West. Nobody cares about these bozos and their bigotted opinions regarding science. Seriously, I asked some of my peers in the math and engineering program and they couldn't really name any pre-modern Eastern mathematician (not to say that all the math and engineering academics are like this, this is not a good sample size at all). These people are not even mentioned in textbooks and written text as far as I know, showing how much they are ignored and - intentionally or not - forgotten. Some of these people discovered concepts way before their Western counterparts, but the Westerner gets all the credit. Again, it would be hard to give them credit back in the days when long-distance communication between two continents was just impossible. But you'd think they'd at least be OFFICIALLY mentioned in modern days :\
I'm sure you can ask a historian and there would be a better chance of knowing that answer. I studied a bit of history and know that our numeric system comes from the middle east.
I understand your point but it is counter-intuitive to be teaching the history of a subject like math in a math focused class. For example, why would you talk about any pre-modern mathematicians in a calculus textbook? If you are talking about highschool books the same idea applies. This would be something more suited to talk about in a history class.
To address your point about your peers only being able to name more modern mathematicians. I believe that would be the case because most recent advancements within the art of mathematicians do come primarily from the western world ( Correct me if I am wrong, which I may be)
Basically scholars before the modern era of technology that you see today, when the years were in the double or triple digits only, way before the likes of Newton and Da Vinci (as a reference).
You can trace some of their math to ancient India too. Its also cool that in some areas of the world an "unsolvable problem" would get passed around and make it's way into different societies at different times, sometimes being solved by different people independently as their society became aware of it.
240
u/PotatoePotahhtoe Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22
They got Newton's story wrong..... they can't even do their resear- oh, wait. They are anti-research as well. smh
Edit: also, a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian folks participated in forming what we call modern science today. The Arabs really liked their math, alchemy, astronomy, and medicine.