Re: [HM] Is Greek mathematics the *real* thing?
Roger Cooke (cooke@emba.uvm.edu)
Thu, 5 Nov 1998 07:49:02 -0500 (EST)
In my view, the Greeks added something that no one else did, not just
deduction, but the axiomatic approach in general. I don't see how we
would ever have arrived at non-Euclidean geometry from any other point of
view. This isn't Eurocentrism, in any case. Ibn al-Haitham worked right
on the main line from Euclid to Lobachevsky, as did many other Muslim
mathematicians.
I have the highest admiration for those who achieved so much with
intuition alone. But, fascinating as "ethnomathematics" is, you can't
do quantum mechanics or relativity with it.
Roger Cooke