Black Mathematicians

[thibodeaux]

http://www.theguardian.com/comment....s-medal

The second story involves one of the few black mathematicians whom white mathematicians acknowledge as great – or, I should say, "black American mathematicians", since obviously Euclid, Eratosthenes and other African mathematicians outshone Europe's brightest stars for millennia.

[Malcolm]

I first met Blackwell in 1995, in the common room of Berkeley's maths department, one of the few times two black people had ever been in the room.

[TheCatt]

http://www.theguardian.com/comment....s-medal

The second story involves one of the few black mathematicians whom white mathematicians acknowledge as great – or, I should say, "black American mathematicians", since obviously Euclid, Eratosthenes and other African mathematicians outshone Europe's brightest stars for millennia.

I guess all the maps are wrong about Greece.

[TheCatt]

Eratosthenes was born in Cyrene (in modern-day Libya). The son of Aglaos, Eratosthenes was born in 276 BC, in a city ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty. The city was colonized in the years after Alexander the Great's conquest. It became the capital of Pentapolis (North Africa), a country of five cities: Cyrene, Arsinde, Berenice, Ptolemias, and Apollonia, Cyrenaica. The rule of Cyrene was given to one of Alexander the Great's generals, Ptolemy I Soter. Under Ptolemaic rule the economy prospered, based largely on the export of horses and silphium, a plant used for rich seasoning and medicine.[3] Cyrene became a place of cultivation, where knowledge blossomed. Like any young Greek, Eratosthenes would have studied in the local gymnasium, where he would have learned physical skills and social discourse as well as reading, writing, arithmetic, poetry, and music.[9]

So, technically, Eratosthenes was born in Africa... but he was the son of colonists from Greece.
Source

[Malcolm]

No one's sure where Euclid was born. He probably did hang around in Egypt at one point. If you want to talk the gurus of math, the original ones were in India, Babylon, and China. Even more technically, the two Es he mentions are more famous in the field of geometry, which was the only way the Greeks knew how to calculate. The two main elements of basic modern math: (i) the numbers and (ii) algebra come from India and Persia, respectively. Whitey is conspicuously absent.

The Europeans were still using clunky Roman numbers until some explorers brought the Indian numbers back from Africa over 1100 years after Christ. The Mayans beat the shit out of Europe in terms of math with less of a headstart.



Edited By Malcolm on 1406329397

[thibodeaux]

So, technically, Eratosthenes was born in Africa... but he was the son of colonists from Greece.
Source

Exactly. But, Africa=Black, if you're grinding an axe.

[thibodeaux]

The two main elements of basic modern math: (i) the numbers and (ii) algebra come from India and Persia, respectively. Whitey is conspicuously absent.

India and Persia: home of the Aryans.