History of Mathematics Events Calendar

Victor Katz, University of the District of Columbia, Emeritus

Victor Katz earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1963 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Brandeis University in 1968, focusing on algebra. He served as a professor at Federal City College and later the University of the District of Columbia until his retirement in 2005. Katz is recognized for his significant contributions to the history of mathematics and mathematics education, including authoring a prize-winning textbook, organizing educational workshops, and co-founding the MAA online journal Convergence: Where Mathematics, History, and Teaching Interact .

Recently Clemency Montelle and I completed work on a new Sourcebook in Greek Mathematics. We made great attempts to broaden the definition of Greek mathematics well beyond the normal main characters of Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius, although, of course, we had to include lots of material from these authors. But there was more to Greek mathematics than wonderful theorems proved by logical deduction from explicit axioms and definitions. First, when Greek civilization spread over the entire Eastern Mediterranean through the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greeks encountered other peoples who also studied mathematics. And once the Roman Empire took over this entire region, mathematics continued to be taught and learned, although often not in the Greek language or in the formal Greek manner. In this talk, I will discuss various pieces of mathematics that were not part of formal Greek mathematics but were in fact written about and taught to students in the Eastern Mediterranean region during the period of strongest Greek cultural influence, from approximately 400BCE to 600CE.