legal deposition (unfair math-history)

Legal Deposition (unfair math-history)

Before the Greeks nobody was able of a theoretical
insight - this sums up what Brian M. Scott told me
for years. If I do him wrong he can easily prove me
wrong by saying that the Greeks were not the first
to practice geometry and mathematics on the basis
of both practical experience _and_ theoretical reasoning,
inutition _and_ logical demonstrations. (Ancient Greek
theoreo means I watch, look, behold, see, while the
term for proof was demonstration).

Thales of Milet, ca. 640-546 BC, learned arithmetics
in Egypt and brought this art to Greece. Eudemus
(ca 335 BC) and others mention six geometrical
propositions. Their simplicity led math-historians
to the asumption that Thales proved them, and this,
they assume further, was the reason why Eudemus
mentions them. Note well, mere assumptions make
Thales the father of geometry, while the Greeks believed
that geometry originated in Egypt, and they said so,
in all clarity, without any ambiguity. The fourth proposition
is the so-called theorem of Thales, inferred to be his
on the basis of a statement by the woman historian
Pamphilae of the first century AD: an angle in a semicircle
is a right angle. Let us prove this theorem. A rectangle
has four sides, two and two are of the same length,
all four angles are equal, a right angle each, and also
the two diagonals are equal, and, what is more, they
intersect in the middle. This means we can draw
a circle around the intersection point of the diagonals
through the four corners of the rectangles, ends of
the diagonals which become diameters of the circle.
This holds for every rectangle, for the fat square and
the slim line at either end of the scale. Now cut your
figure in two, along one of the diagonals, and you
obtain a semicircle with an inscribed triangle, and
the angle that meets with the circumference somewhere
in between the ends is a right angle, one of the
untouched angles of the initial rectangle. Quod erat
demonstrandum. A very simple logical demonstration,
attributed to Thales out of mere assumptions, making
him the father of geometry. With equal or even more
right we can ascribe this logical demonstration to
the Egyptians, who, according to Aristotle, Herodotus,
and others, created geometry and mathematics, but
are deprived of their achievemnt by the bias of European
and North American math-history. As Theophile Obenga
says: if Thales had written the Rhind Mathematical
Papyrus it would be regarded as revelation of the divine
demiurg himself, but as it is Egyptian it is nothing much.
No evidence of theoretical reasoning and logical
demonstrations. No real geometry and mathematics.
How can one hope to bring democracy to the world
while perpetuating such a profound injustice?

Franz Gnaedinger, Zurich, early December 2007
.

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