Sept 13 Response to Crest of the Peacock

Many information/discoveries made by European expanders/explorers came to be over the past few centuries and that what we learned about these information/discoveries are from their observations. It’s as if they weren’t readily available before any encounters the Europeans had. We all know that isn’t the case. Many mathematical concepts and techniques often attributed to European scholars were known and used centuries earlier in other parts of the world. So for me, getting to observe how the ancients were able to do calculations and mathematical observations to such a fascinating degree where they could build the pyramids, roads with no pot holes, and the sewage system of the Forbidden Kingdom is truly remarkable (and no current European system can replicate such a feat). I never learned that a lot of these fathers of ancient mathematics from Greece (whose foundation became bedrock for modern Euro-mathematics cultural dependencies) actually interacted heavily with other ancient cultures from Egypt/Mesopotamia/India. That entails that indeed the honor and respect for these other cultural observations on math findings are important and somewhat embedded in math teachings today. I say somewhat due to the fact that there is so much more that could be extracted/implemented/used/taught from them, but also because the credit for them is hardly ever mentioned. So if a student (who learned their math history) came from one of these countries to North America and sees many concepts being credited to whites in relatively more recent times compared to the great mathematicians from their culture, would they not feel dejected and subverted? The numeracy skills and systems developed in those places back then were also observed to be more efficient, and in some places used in areas of our daily lives like in computer languages and time telling. So, to be flexible is important and to use and appreciate how vast this whole topic truly is will lead to a more inclusive and diverse field of expertise.