PROJECT REPORT

ON
HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
SUBMITTED TO

SAMBALPUR UNIVERSITY

BY

SRADHANJALI MISHRA
JR. LECTURE IN MATHEMATICS

SUSILABATI GOVT. WOMEN’S (JR) COLLEGE, ROURKELA

34TH ORIENTATION PROGRAMMEE, UGC HRDC

UGC, HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT CENTRE,

SAMBALPUR UNIVERSITY

JYOTI VIHAR, BURLA

SAMBALPUR-768019
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The project report is the product of the Contribution of many people. It is my sincere
obligation to give them thank. I am extremely thankfull to director prof. A.K. Das Mohapatra,
Deputy director, Prof. Bulu Maharana, UGC – Human Resource Development Centre,
Sambalpur University for their help, continuous encouragement, guidance and timely support
throughout the orientation programme to do this piece of work.

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the director, Deputy Director opf DHE
Odisha for selecting my name to be part of this orientation programme. Last but not least , I
am thankful to the teaching and non-teaching staff of Human Resource Development Centre,
sambalpur university for their all round cooperation

Date

Place Signature of participant

 CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION
2. PRE- HISTORIC MATHEMATICS
3. SUMERIAN/ BABYLONIAN MATHEMATICS
4. GREEK MATHEMATICS
INTORDUCTION

The history of mathematics is nearly as old as humanity itself. Since antiquity, mathematics
has been fundamental to advances in science, engineering, and philosophy. It has evolved
from simple counting, measurement and calculation, and the systematic study of the shapes
and motions of physical objects, through the application of abstraction, imagination and
logic, to the broad, complex and often abstract discipline we know today.From the notched
bones of early man to the mathematical advances brought about by settled agriculture
in Mesopotamia and Egypt and the revolutionary developments of ancient Greece and
its Hellenistic empire, the story of mathematics is a long and impressive one.The East carried
on the baton, particularly China, India and the medieval Islamic empire, before the focus of
mathematical innovation moved back to Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Then, a whole new series of revolutionary developments occurred in 17th Century and 18th
Century Europe, setting the stage for the increasing complexity and abstraction of 19th
Century mathematics, and finally the audacious and sometimes devastating discoveries of
the 20th Century.

PREHISTORIC
MATHEMATICS

Our prehistoric ancestors

would have had a general
sensibility about amounts,
and would have instinctively
known the difference
between, say, one and two
antelopes. But the intellectual
leap from the concrete idea of
two things to the invention of
a symbol or word for the
abstract idea of "two" took The Ishango bone, a tally stick from central Africa, dates from
many ages to come about. about 20,000 years ago

Even today, there are isolated hunter-gatherer tribes in Amazonia which only have words for
"one", "two" and "many", and others which only have words for numbers up to five. In the
absence of settled agriculture and trade, there is little need for a formal system of numbers.

Early man kept track of regular occurrences such as the phases of the moon and the seasons.
Some of the very earliest evidence of mankind thinking about numbers is from notched bones
in Africa dating back to 35,000 to 20,000 years ago. But this is really mere counting and
tallying rather than mathematics as such.

Pre-dynastic Egyptians and Sumerians represented geometric designs on their artefacts as

early as the 5th millennium BCE, as did some megalithic societies in northern Europe in the
3rd millennium BCE or before. But this is more art and decoration than the systematic
treatment of figures, patterns, forms and quantities that has come to be considered as
mathematics.
Mathematics proper initially developed largely as a response to bureaucratic needs when
civilizations settled and developed agriculture - for the measurement of plots of land, the
taxation of individuals, etc - and this first occurred in the Sumerian and
Babylonian civilizations of Mesopotamia (roughly, modern Iraq) and in ancient Egypt.

According to some authorities, there is evidence of basic arithmetic and geometric notations
on the petroglyphs at Knowth and Newgrange burial mounds in Ireland (dating from about
3500 BCE and 3200 BCE respectively). These utilize a repeated zig-zag glyph for counting, a
system which continued to be used in Britain and Ireland into the 1st millennium BCE.
Stonehenge, a Neolithic ceremonial and astronomical monument in England, which dates
from around 2300 BCE, also arguably exhibits examples of the use of 60 and 360 in the circle
measurements, a practice which presumably developed quite independently of the
sexagesimal counting system of the ancient Sumerian and Babylonians

SUMERIAN/BABYLONIA
N MATHEMATICS

Sumer (a region of
Mesopotamia, modern-day
Iraq) was the birthplace of
writing, the wheel,
agriculture, the arch, the
plow, irrigation and many
other innovations, and is
often referred to as the Cradle
of Civilization. The
Sumerians developed the
earliest known writing system
- a pictographic writing
system known as cuneiform
script, using wedge-shaped Sumerian Clay Cones
characters inscribed on baked
clay tablets - and this has meant that we actually have more knowledge of ancient Sumerian
and Babylonian mathematics than of early Egyptian mathematics. Indeed, we even have what
appear to school exercises in arithmetic and geometric problems.As in Egypt, Sumerian
mathematics initially developed largely as a response to bureaucratic needs when their
civilization settled and developed agriculture (possibly as early as the 6th millennium BCE)
for the measurement of plots of land, the taxation of individuals, etc. In addition, the
Sumerians and Babylonians needed to describe quite large numbers as they attempted to chart
the course of the night sky and develop their sophisticated lunar calendar.

They were perhaps the first people to assign symbols to groups of objects in an attempt to
make the description of larger numbers easier. They moved from using separate tokens or
symbols to represent sheaves of wheat, jars of oil, etc, to the more abstract use of a symbol
for specific numbers of anything. Starting as early as the 4th millennium BCE, they began
using a small clay cone to represent one, a clay ball for ten, and a large cone for sixty. Over
the course of the third millennium, these objects were replaced by cuneiform equivalents so
that numbers could be written with the same stylus that was being used for the words in the
text. A rudimentary model of the abacus was probably in use in Sumeria from as early as
2700 - 2300 BCE.

Sumerian and Babylonian

mathematics was based on a
sexegesimal, or base 60,
numeric system, which could
be counted physically using
the twelve knuckles on one
hand the five fingers on the
other hand. Unlike those of
the Egyptians, Greeks and Ro
mans, Babylonian numbers
used a true place-value
system, where digits written
in the left column represented
larger values, much as in the
Babylonian Numerals
modern decimal system,
although of course using base
60 not base 10. Thus, in the Babylonian system represented 3,600 plus 60 plus 1, or
3,661. Also, to represent the numbers 1 - 59 within each place value, two distinct symbols
were used, a unit symbol ( ) and a ten symbol ( ) which were combined in a similar way to
the familiar system of Roman numerals (e.g. 23 would be shown as ).
Thus, represents 60 plus 23, or 83. However, the number 60 was represented by the
same symbol as the number 1 and, because they lacked an equivalent of the decimal point,
the actual place value of a symbol often had to be inferred from the context.

It has been conjectured that Babylonian advances in mathematics were probably facilitated by
the fact that 60 has many divisors (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 and 60 - in fact, 60 is the
smallest integer divisible by all integers from 1 to 6), and the continued modern-day usage of
of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 (60 x 6) degrees in a circle, are all
testaments to the ancient Babylonian system. It is for similar reasons that 12 (which has
factors of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6) has been such a popular multiple historically (e.g. 12 months, 12
inches, 12 pence, 2 x 12 hours, etc).

The Babylonians also developed another revolutionary mathematical concept, something else
that the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans did not have, a circle character for zero, although its
symbol was really still more of a placeholder than a number in its own right.We have
evidence of the development of a complex system of metrology in Sumer from about 3000
BCE, and multiplication and reciprocal (division) tables, tables of squares, square roots and
cube roots, geometrical exercises and division problems from around 2600 BCE onwards.
Later Babylonian tablets dating from about 1800 to 1600 BCE cover topics as varied as
fractions, algebra, methods for solving linear, quadratic and even some cubic equations, and
the calculation of regular reciprocal pairs (pairs of number which multiply together to give
60). One Babylonian tablet gives an approximation to √2 accurate to an astonishing five
decimal places. Others list the squares of numbers up to 59, the cubes of numbers up to 32 as
well as tables of compound interest. Yet another gives an estimate for π of 3 1⁄8 (3.125, a
reasonable approximation of
the real value of 3.1416).

The idea of square numbers

and quadratic equations
(where the unknown quantity
is multiplied by itself, e.g. x2)
naturally arose in the context
of the meaurement of land,
and Babylonian mathematical
tablets give us the first ever
evidence of the solution of
quadratic equations. The
Babylonian approach to
solving them usually revolved Babylonian Clay tablets from c. 2100 BCE showing a problem
around a kind of geometric concerning the area of an irregular shape
game of slicing up and
rearranging shapes, although the use of algebra and quadratic equations also appears. At least
some of the examples we have appear to indicate problem-solving for its own sake rather
than in order to resolve a concrete practical problem.

The Babylonians used geometric shapes in their buildings and design and in dice for the
leisure games which were so popular in their society, such as the ancient game of
backgammon. Their geometry extended to the calculation of the areas of rectangles, triangles
and trapezoids, as well as the volumes of simple shapes such as bricks and cylinders
(although not pyramids).

The famous and controversial Plimpton 322 clay tablet, believed to date from around 1800
BCE, suggests that the Babylonians may well have known the secret of right-angled triangles
(that the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the square of the other two sides) many
centuries before the Greek Pythagoras. The tablet appears to list 15 perfect Pythagorean
triangles with whole number sides, although some claim that they were merely academic
exercises, and not deliberate manifestations of Pythagorean triples.

GREEK MATHEMATICS
As the Greek empire began to
spread its sphere of influence
into Asia
Minor, Mesopotamia and
beyond, the Greeks were
smart enough to adopt and
adapt useful elements from
the societies they conquered.
This was as true of their Ancient Greek Herodianic numerals
mathematics as anything else,
and they adopted elements of
mathematics from both the Babylonians and the Egyptians. But they soon started to make
important contributions in their own right and, for the first time, we can acknowledge
contributions by individuals. By the Hellenistic period, the Greeks had presided over one of
the most dramatic and important revolutions in mathematical thought of all time.

The ancient Greek numeral system, known as Attic or Herodianic numerals, was fully
developed by about 450 BCE, and in regular use possibly as early as the 7th Century BCE. It
was a base 10 system similar to the earlier Egyptian one (and even more similar to the
later Roman system), with symbols for 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 repeated as many
times needed to represent the desired number. Addition was done by totalling separately the
symbols (1s, 10s, 100s, etc) in the numbers to be added, and multiplication was a laborious
process based on successive
doublings (division was based
on the inverse of this
process).

But most of Greek

mathematics was based on
geometry. Thales, one of the
Seven Sages of Ancient
Greece, who lived on the
Ionian coast of Asian Minor
in the first half of the 6th
Century BCE, is usually
considered to have been the
first to lay down guidelines
for the abstract development
of geometry, although what
we know of his work (such as
on similar and right triangles)
now seems quite elementary.

Thales established what has

become known as Thales'
Theorem, whereby if a
triangle is drawn within a Thales' Intercept Theorem
circle with the long side as a
diameter of the circle, then
the opposite angle will always be a right angle (as well as some other related properties
derived from this). He is also credited with another theorem, also known as Thales' Theorem
or the Intercept Theorem, about the ratios of the line segments that are created if two
intersecting lines are intercepted by a pair of parallels (and, by extension, the ratios of the
sides of similar triangles).

To some extent, however, the legend of the 6th Century BCE mathematician Pythagoras of
Samos has become synonymous with the birth of Greek mathematics. Indeed, he is believed
to have coined both the words "philosophy" ("love of wisdom") and "mathematics" ("that
which is learned"). Pythagoras was perhaps the first to realize that a complete system of
mathematics could be constructed, where geometric elements corresponded with numbers.
Pythagoras’ Theorem (or the Pythagorean Theorem) is one of the best known of all
mathematical theorems. But he remains a controversial figure, as we will see, and Greek
mathematics was by no
means limited to one man.

Three geometrical problems

in particular, often referred to
as the Three Classical
Problems, and all to be solved
by purely geometric means
using only a straight edge and
a compass, date back to the
early days of Greek
geometry: “the squaring (or
quadrature) of the circle”,
“the doubling (or duplicating)
of the cube” and “the
trisection of an angle”. These
intransigent problems were
profoundly influential on
future geometry and led to
The Three Classical Problems
many fruitful discoveries,
although their actual solutions
(or, as it turned out, the proofs of their impossibility) had to wait until the 19th Century.

Hippocrates of Chios (not to be confused with the great Greek physician Hippocrates of Kos)
was one such Greek mathematician who applied himself to these problems during the 5th
Century BCE (his contribution to the “squaring the circle” problem is known as the Lune of
Hippocrates). His influential book “The Elements”, dating to around 440 BCE, was the first
compilation of the elements of geometry, and his work was an important source for Euclid's
later work.
It was the Greeks who first
grappled with the idea of
infinity, such as described in
the well-known paradoxes
attributed to the philosopher
Zeno of Elea in the 5th
Century BCE. The most
famous of his paradoxes is
that of Achilles and the
Tortoise, which describes a
theoretical race between
Achilles and a tortoise.
Achilles gives the much
slower tortoise a head start,
but by the time Achilles
reaches the tortoise's starting
point, the tortoise has already
moved ahead. By the time
Achilles reaches that point,
the tortoise has moved on
again, etc, etc, so that in Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise
principle the swift Achilles
can never catch up with the slow tortoise.

Paradoxes such as this one and Zeno's so-called Dichotomy Paradox are based on the infinite
divisibility of space and time, and rest on the idea that a half plus a quarter plus an eighth plus
a sixteenth, etc, etc, to infinity will never quite equal a whole. The paradox stems, however,
from the false assumption that it is impossible to complete an infinite number of discrete
dashes in a finite time, although it is extremely difficult to definitively prove the fallacy. The
ancient Greek Aristotle was the first of many to try to disprove the paradoxes, particularly as
he was a firm believer that infinity could only ever be potential and not real.

Democritus, most famous for his prescient ideas about all matter being composed of tiny
atoms, was also a pioneer of mathematics and geometry in the 5th - 4th Century BCE, and he
produced works with titles like "On Numbers", "On Geometrics", "On Tangencies", "On
Mapping" and "On Irrationals", although these works have not survived. We do know that he
was among the first to observe that a cone (or pyramid) has one-third the volume of a
cylinder (or prism) with the same base and height, and he is perhaps the first to have seriously
considered the division of objects into an infinite number of cross-sections.

However, it is certainly true that Pythagoras in particular greatly influenced those who came
after him, including Plato, who established his famous Academy in Athens in 387 BCE, and
his protégé Aristotle, whose work on logic was regarded as definitive for over two thousand
years. Plato the mathematician is best known for his description of the five Platonic solids,
but the value of his work as a teacher and popularizer of mathematics can not be overstated.

Plato’s student Eudoxus of Cnidus is usually credited with the first implementation of the
“method of exhaustion” (later developed by Archimedes), an early method of integration by
successive approximations which he used for the calculation of the volume of the pyramid
and cone. He also developed a general theory of proportion, which was applicable to
incommensurable (irrational) magnitudes that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two whole
numbers, as well as to commensurable (rational) magnitudes, thus extending Pythagoras’
incomplete ideas.

Perhaps the most important single contribution of the Greeks, though -

and Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle were all influential in this respect - was the idea of proof,
and the deductive method of using logical steps to prove or disprove theorems from initial
assumed axioms. Older cultures, like the Egyptians and the Babylonians, had relied on
inductive reasoning, that is using repeated observations to establish rules of thumb. It is this
concept of proof that give mathematics its power and ensures that proven theories are as true
today as they were two thousand years ago, and which laid the foundations for the systematic
approach to mathematics of Euclid and those who came after him.

GREEK MATHEMATICS - PYTHAGORAS

It is sometimes claimed that we owe pure mathematics to

Pythagoras, and he is often called the first "true"
mathematician. But, although his contribution was clearly
important, he nevertheless remains a controversial figure. He
left no mathematical writings himself, and much of what we
know about Pythagorean thought comes to us from the
writings of Philolaus and other later Pythagorean scholars.
Indeed, it is by no means clear whether many (or indeed any)
of the theorems ascribed to him were in fact solved by
Pythagoras personally or by his followers.

The school he established at Croton in southern Italy around

530 BCE was the nucleus of a rather bizarre Pythagorean
sect. Although Pythagorean thought was largely dominated
by mathematics, it was also profoundly mystical, and
Pythagoras of Samos (c.570-
Pythagoras imposed his quasi-religious philosophies, strict
495 BCE)
vegetarianism, communal living, secret rites and odd rules on
all the members of his school (including bizarre and
apparently random edicts about never urinating towards the sun, never marrying a woman
who wears gold jewellery, never passing an ass lying in the street, never eating or even
touching black fava beans, etc) .

The members were divided into the "mathematikoi" (or "learners"), who extended and
developed the more mathematical and scientific work that Pythagoras himself began, and the
"akousmatikoi" (or "listeners"), who focused on the more religious and ritualistic aspects of
his teachings. There was always a certain amount of friction between the two groups and
eventually the sect became caught up in some fierce local fighting and ultimately dispersed.
Resentment built up against the secrecy and exclusiveness of the Pythagoreans and, in 460
BCE, all their meeting places were burned and destroyed, with at least 50 members killed in
Croton alone.
The over-riding dictum of Pythagoras's school was “All is number” or “God is number”, and
the Pythagoreans effectively practised a kind of numerology or number-worship, and
considered each number to have its own character and meaning. For example, the number one
was the generator of all numbers; two represented opinion; three, harmony; four, justice; five,
marriage; six, creation; seven, the seven planets or “wandering stars”; etc. Odd numbers were
thought of as female and even
numbers as male.

The holiest number of all was

"tetractys" or ten, a triangular
number composed of the sum
of one, two, three and four. It
is a great tribute to the
Pythagoreans' intellectual
achievements that they
deduced the special place of
the number 10 from an
abstract mathematical
argument rather than from
something as mundane as
counting the fingers on two
hands.

However, Pythagoras and his

The Pythagorean Tetractys
school - as well as a handful
of other mathematicians of
ancient Greece - was largely responsible for introducing a more rigorous mathematics than
what had gone before, building from first principles using axioms and logic. Before
Pythagoras, for example, geometry had been merely a collection of rules derived by empirical
measurement. Pythagoras discovered that a complete system of mathematics could be
constructed, where geometric elements corresponded with numbers, and where integers and
their ratios were all that was necessary to establish an entire system of logic and truth.

He is mainly remembered for what has become known as Pythagoras’ Theorem (or the
Pythagorean Theorem): that, for any right-angled triangle, the square of the length of the
hypotenuse (the longest side, opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the square of the
other two sides (or “legs”). Written as an equation: a2 + b2 = c2. What Pythagoras and his
followers did not realize is that this also works for any shape: thus, the area of a pentagon on
the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the pentagons on the other two sides, as it does for a
semi-circle or any other regular (or even irregular( shape.
The simplest and most
commonly quoted example of
a Pythagorean triangle is one
with sides of 3, 4 and 5 units
(32 + 42 = 52, as can be seen
by drawing a grid of unit
squares on each side as in the
diagram at right), but there
are a potentially infinite
number of other integer
“Pythagorean triples”,
starting with (5, 12 13), (6, 8,
10), (7, 24, 25), (8, 15, 17),
(9, 40, 41), etc. It should be
noted, however that (6, 8, 10)
is not what is known as a
“primitive” Pythagorean
triple, because it is just a
multiple of (3, 4, 5).
Pythagoras' (Pythagorean) Theorem
Pythagoras’ Theorem and the
properties of right-angled triangles seems to be the most ancient and widespread
mathematical development after basic arithmetic and geometry, and it was touched on in
some of the most ancient mathematical texts from Babylon and Egypt, dating from over a
thousand years earlier. One of the simplest proofs comes from ancient China, and probably
dates from well before Pythagoras' birth. It was Pythagoras, though, who gave the theorem its
definitive form, although it is not clear whether Pythagoras himself definitively proved it or
merely described it. Either way, it has become one of the best-known of all mathematical
theorems, and as many as 400 different proofs now exist, some geometrical, some algebraic,
some involving advanced differential equations, etc.

It soom became apparent, though, that non-integer solutions were also possible, so that an
isosceles triangle with sides 1, 1 and √2, for example, also has a right angle, as
the Babylonians had discovered centuries earlier. However, when Pythagoras’s student
Hippasus tried to calculate the value of √2, he found that it was not possible to express it as a
fraction, thereby indicating the potential existence of a whole new world of numbers, the
irrational numbers (numbers that can not be expressed as simple fractions of integers). This
discovery rather shattered the elegant mathematical world built up by Pythagoras and his
followers, and the existence of a number that could not be expressed as the ratio of two of
God's creations (which is how they thought of the integers) jeopardized the cult's entire belief
system.

Poor Hippasus was apparently drowned by the secretive Pythagoreans for broadcasting this
important discovery to the outside world. But the replacement of the idea of the divinity of
the integers by the richer concept of the continuum, was an essential development in
mathematics. It marked the real birth of Greek geometry, which deals with lines and planes
and angles, all of which are continuous and not discrete.

Among his other achievements in geometry, Pythagoras (or at least his followers, the
Pythagoreans) also realized that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right
angles (180°), and probably also the generalization which states that the sum of the interior
angles of a polygon with n sides is equal to (2n - 4) right angles, and that the sum of its
exterior angles equals 4 right angles. They were able to construct figures of a given area, and
to use simple geometrical algebra, for example to solve equations such as a(a - x) = x2 by
geometrical means.

The Pythagoreans also established the foundations of number theory, with their investigations
of triangular, square and also perfect numbers (numbers that are the sum of their divisors).
They discovered several new properties of square numbers, such as that the square of a
number n is equal to the sum of the first n odd numbers (e.g. 42 = 16 = 1 + 3 + 5 + 7). They
also discovered at least the first pair of amicable numbers, 220 and 284 (amicable numbers
are pairs of numbers for which the sum of the divisors of one number equals the other
number, e.g. the proper divisors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and 110, of which
the sum is 284; and the proper divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142, of which the sum is
220).

Pythagoras is also credited

with the discovery that the
intervals between harmonious
musical notes always have
whole number ratios. For
instance, playing half a length
of a guitar string gives the
same note as the open string,
but an octave higher; a third
of a length gives a different
but harmonious note; etc.
Non-whole number ratios, on
the other hand, tend to give
dissonant sounds. In this way,
Pythagoras described the first
four overtones which create
Pythagoras is credited with the discovery of the ratios
the common intervals which
between harmonious musical tones
have become the primary
building blocks of musical
harmony: the octave (1:1), the perfect fifth (3:2), the perfect fourth (4:3) and the major third
(5:4). The oldest way of tuning the 12-note chromatic scale is known as Pythagorean tuning,
and it is based on a stack of perfect fifths, each tuned in the ratio 3:2.
The mystical Pythagoras was so excited by this discovery that he became convinced that the
whole universe was based on numbers, and that the planets and stars moved according to
mathematical equations, which corresponded to musical notes, and thus produced a kind of
symphony, the “Musical Universalis” or “Music of the Spheres”.

GREEK MATHEMATICS - PLATO

Although usually remembered today as a philosopher, Plato

was also one of ancient Greece’s most important patrons of
mathematics. Inspired by Pythagoras, he founded his
Academy in Athens in 387 BCE, where he stressed
mathematics as a way of understanding more about reality.
In particular, he was convinced that geometry was the key to
unlocking the secrets of the universe. The sign above the
Academy entrance read: “Let no-one ignorant of geometry
enter here”.

Plato played an important role in encouraging and inspiring

Greek intellectuals to study mathematics as well as
philosophy. His Academy taught mathematics as a branch of
philosophy, as Pythagoras had done, and the first 10 years of
the 15 year course at the Academy involved the study of Plato (c.428-348 BCE)
science and mathematics, including plane and solid
geometry, astronomy and harmonics. Plato became known as
the "maker of mathematicians", and his Academy boasted some of the most prominent
mathematicians of the ancient world, including Eudoxus, Theaetetus and Archytas.

He demanded of his students accurate definitions, clearly stated assumptions, and logical
deductive proof, and he insisted that geometric proofs be demonstrated with no aids other
than a straight edge and a compass. Among the many mathematical problems Plato posed for
his students’ investigation were the so-called Three Classical Problems (“squaring the circle”,
“doubling the cube” and “trisecting the angle”) and to some extent these problems have
become identified with Plato, although he was not the first to pose them.
Plato the mathematician is
perhaps best known for his
identification of 5 regular
symmetrical 3-dimensional
shapes, which he maintained
were the basis for the whole
universe, and which have
become known as the
Platonic Solids: the
tetrahedron (constructed of 4
regular triangles, and which
for Plato represented fire), the
octahedron (composed of 8
triangles, representing air),
the icosahedron (composed of
20 triangles, and representing
Platonic Solids
water), the cube (composed
of 6 squares, and representing
earth), and the dodecahedron (made up of 12 pentagons, which Plato obscurely described as
“the god used for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven”).

The tetrahedron, cube and dodecahedron were probably familiar to Pythagoras, and the
octahedron and icosahedron were probably discovered by Theaetetus, a contemporary of
Plato. Furthermore, it fell to Euclid, half a century later, to prove that these were the only
possible convex regular polyhedra. But they nevertheless became popularly known as the
Platonic Solids, and inspired mathematicians and geometers for many centuries to come. For
example, around 1600, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler devised an ingenious system
of nested Platonic solids and spheres to approximate quite well the distances of the known
planets from the Sun (although he was enough of a scientist to abandon his elegant model
when it proved to be not accurate enough).