E-mail Assignments

MAT 300-02L, Spring 2006

 

EA1 EA2 EA3 EA4 EA5 EA6 EA7 EA8
EA9 EA10            

 

 

E-mail Assignment 1

The answers to the following questions should be emailed to me by 11:30 am on Tuesday, January 31.

 

1.       When was the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus written (copied) and who was the scribe that copied it?  The date will be approximate.

 

2.   What are the approximate dimensions of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus?

 

3.   On the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, there are a number of "pesu" problems, which involve things made of grain.  How do you compute the pesu measure of bread?  Note:  You do not need to define hekat, which is an Egyptian measure of volume.

 

E-mail Assignment 2

The answers to the following questions should be emailed to me by noon on Thursday, February 2.  In addition to the text, you may need to look at the handout containing the contents of the Rhind Papyrus and the Moscow Papyrus.

 

1.     In the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, the method of false position is used to solve what kind of equations?

 

2.     The Rhind and Moscow papyri have problems involving the pesu of two "foods" made from grain. What are those two "foods"?  Note that both can be made from grain, but I do not want grain as an answer.

 

3.     To what does the Egyptian term "seked" refer?

 

E-mail Assignment 3

The answers to the following questions should be emailed to me by 10:00am on Tuesday, February 7.  In addition to the text, you may need to look at the handout containing the contents of the Rhind Papyrus and the Moscow Papyrus.

  1. List a type of mathematical problem, other than strict computations or just solving equations, that appeared on the Rhind Papyrus but did not appear on the Moscow Papyrus.
     

  2. In Problem 10 on the Moscow Papyrus, the scribe gives a procedure for finding the surface area of what object?  Give both the general geometric name and the name of the "physical" object referred to in the problem.

E-mail Assignment 4

This assignment is an alternate assignment for anyone who did not submit E-mail Assignment 1 or who wishes to improve his/her score on E-mail Assignment 1.  The answers should be e-mailed to me by 2:00pm on Tuesday, February 7.

  1. Is the Egyptian hieratic number system a grouping system, a ciphered system, or a positional system?  Note that I am asking about the hieratic system, not the hieroglyphic system?
     

  2. Only one example of the solution of a quadratic equation appears on any known source of ancient Egyptian mathematics.  On what papyrus does that problem appear?
     

  3. What were the three languages on the Rosetta Stone?

E-mail Assignment 5

The answers to the following questions should be emailed to me by 11:00 am on Thursday, February 9. The answers are all in the reading in the course text.

  1. What numbers are characterized by the author of our text as regular sezagesimal numbers?
     

  2. What do the initials YBC mean when referring to the classification of a Babylonian tablet?
     

  3. Give one way that the Babylonians would have found the area of a circle. While we might think in terms of formulas, the Babylonians would have thought in terms of procedures or processes.

E-mail Assignment 6

The answers to the following questions should be emailed to me by 5:00pm on Tuesday, February 14.  The answers should all be in the reading in the course text.

  1. Plimpton 322 is a tablet in the Plimpton Collection at Columbia University. In the text's discussion of Plimpton 322, which column does not actually appear on the tablet?
     

  2. What is a gnomen?

E-mail Assignment 7

The answers to the following questions should be emailed to me by 5:00pm on Tuesday, February 21.   You will need to do the assigned reading in the text and the assigned readings from the MacTutor History of Mathematics website.

  1. Identify the modern country in which each of the following cities is located.  There is a map on the insider back cover of your text that may prove useful.  Also note that only one of the four cities would actually lie in modern Greece.
         Athens
         Crotona
         Miletus
         Syracuse
     

  2. Many textbooks on the history of mathematics credit Thales with five theorems of elementary geometry:  State one of these theorems.

E-mail Assignment 8

The anwers to the following questions should be emailed to me by 5:00pm on Thursday, March 9.  You will need to do the assigned readings in the text and the assigned readings from the MacTutor History of Mathematics website.

  1. What is an oblong number?
     

  2. What is a syllogism?
     

  3. What Greek mathematician was the first major historian of mathematics? 
     

  4. What statement was (supposedly) written above the door to Plato's Academy?

     

E-mail Assignment 9

The answers to the following questions should be emailed to me by 5:00pm on Tuesday, March 14.  You will need to do the assigned readings in the text and the assigned readings from the MacTutor History of Mathematics website.

  1. Carefully state the problem of squaring the circle.  Note that I am using the word problem here in its mathematical sense, not in the sense of difficulty.
     

  2. Carefully state the problem of doubling the cube.  Note that I am using the word problem here in its mathematical sense, not in the sense of difficulty.
     

  3. An alternate notation for ratio uses a colon, so a:b is the same as a/b, or the ratio of a to b.  The problem of finding the geometric mean of two quantities a and b, i.e. find c such that a:c=c:b, is sometimes called the problem of finding the mean proportional.  Given two quantities a and b, what do we call the problem of finding two numbers c and d such that a:c=c:d=d:b ?
     

  4. Eudoxus was able to give rigorous proofs of a number of theorems using the method of exhaustion, which he helped develop.  State one of those theorems.
     

  5. Euclid lived and worked in Alexandria.  In what country was that city?

 

E-mail Assignment 10

The answers to the following questions should be emailed to me by 5:00pm on Thursday, March 16.  You will need to do the assigned readings in the text and the assigned readings from the MacTutor History of Mathematics website.

  1. What were the two "academic" institutions founded in Alexandria around 320 BCE by Ptolemy?
     

  2. Euclid's most famous work was called The Elements, or The Elements of Geometry.  This work is broken into parts, which we will call books.  How many such books are there in The Elements?

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Last revised:  March 15, 2006