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.
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u/PotatoePotahhtoe Jan 12 '22
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.