MAT 300-02L

Spring 2004

Paper #2 (for the L-section only)

Due February 26.

300-400 words.  The paper should be double-spaced.

Part he reading assignment for February 24 is to read the article “How do we know about Greek mathematics?” on the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.  Write a review/critique of that article.  Be sure your paper addresses the following.  However, it should read smoothly as a single essay, not four or five short essays stapled together.

What were the main points of the article?

What did you find most interesting about the article?

Do you feel that the article was well-written in the sense that the article as a whole made sense to you and that it was readable?  I am not asking you to judge the accuracy of the article nor necessarily its completeness.

Were there parts of the article that you had trouble understanding?  If so, was that due to the historical content or the technical mathematical content?

Compare how we know what we know about Greek mathematics to how we know what we know about Babylonian or Egyptian mathematics.  There should be sufficient examples in the assigned reading that I have already assigned (including this article) to illustrate your points.