The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1883-08-18
The Source OF Mathematics.

Gne soience Oh comDlDng the separated.
The Moslems in Cairo zealously Guilt
waited 1t, and after they came to know
Euclid they became great mathemati.
oians on the basis of the writings of
Claudius Ptolem@us, and also great as
tronomers and geographers. In this
province, too, trey owe to the ancient
Egyptians more than has hitherto been
acknowledged. It is by no means acci-
dental that the greatest mathematioians
of Hellenic antiquity were STYLED pupils
OF the E Egyptians, or that it was said of
them that they had lived ON the Nile.
Tha'es 600 b. o. is reported to have
measured the height OF tie pyramids by
their shadow. Pythagoras lived long
in Egypt, and studied s.5articularly al
Heliopolis. He is said to have been
master of the Egyptian language, and
Onuphis and Sonchis arc mentioned as
his principal teachers. In tho same city
| OF scholars was trained, under Nektaul-
bos l., Eudemos of Knidos, (357,) who
discovered among other things, that a
pyramid was the third part OF q prism
whose base and sides were equal. 1t is
we'll known that Euclid wrote his s.Ele.
ments" in Alexandria, under the first
Ptolemy (Soter.) The great Eratosthe-
nes, who was the first to measure a
meridian OF the earth, owed his SUCCESS
IN doing so to the previ Ills investlea-
tons made in that department by the
Egyptians, who were already able to
give with tolerable accuracy the distance
in straight line from Alexandria to
Tyana. In all this there is nothing that
ls now to mathematioians, but few of
them have any acquaintance with the
records that make known to us the state
OF mathematical science among the
Egyptians in the beginning Of the
second millennium B. G. The Rhind pa-
pyrus, preserved in tho British museum.
may be termed q handbook of ancient
Egyptian mathematics. 1t wns written
by certain Aahmesu, under one ct the
last Hykso kings, and shows that the
science of ancient times continued to
exist even under the hated conquerors,
The Heidelberg Egyptologlst Fisenlohr
bus published this remarkable codex
and translation of it, with the assis
tanee OF Kantor, tue well known authorl-
ty II the history of mathematics. Some
OF the mlstaken renderings of these
scholars--easlly excuSuble Oh account
OF the great difficulty Of the matter
have been pointed out in most acute
aud stimulating paper by L. Fl. Rhodct,
which we recommend to the attention
OF al! mathenaticians. The Rlind pa
pyrus establishes the remarkable fact
that certain processes of reckoning used
by the writer of that very ancient doc
ument are identical with processes
tGam found AMONG, among the the gssaks saRsa, through
mathematiclans of the middle ages, to
whom the writings of the Arabs wore
made known, for the most part. by
jewish scholars. When we find, for
example, the arithmeticaI process of
'falee stating" to have been practiced
from the time of Aahmesu (about 100
Is. O. ,iowu to the sixteenth century A.
d., that seems remarkable enough; but
1t is more astonishing still to find that
certain examples of progression which
extort smile from us on account of the
heterogeneous character of their ar
rangement, are contained III the writ
lngs OF Fibonacci Neonardo Won Pisa)
about the year 1900 A. d., in exactly
the same form in which they are gwen
hy Aahmesu. This fact, discovered by
khodet, is 30 remarkable, SO easily un-
derstood, and 80 striking to the eye,
that it will interest even the lay mind.
The Egyptian example is stated thus:
Scribes. z; onts. 40; mice, 343; meas
ures of corn, 2,041; bushels, 16,S07-
total, 1907. That Is, there are 7
scribes, and every &c ihe has cuts (49)
and each cat catches mice (3l3); AMI
every mouse III given time eats 7
measures of corn (2,401); and every
measure when sown produces 7 bushels
(l6 8ON. How much is the whole? 49,
6U7