The Crest of the Peacock Discussion

 The first chapter from The Crest of the Peacock is very interesting to read. The author tries to assemble and make connection of developments in mathematics across the world in a timely fashion. The perspective of the author is non-Eurocentric, which provides alternative way to see how mathematics has been developed as a global effort. There are many details in the first chapter I encountered for the first time. I would like to share a few things I find surprising to know. 

·       Human body of knowledge including mathematics is almost negligible in any measure (magnitude, depth, speed) compared to the size of knowledge and data stored in the natural universe. Our development in science and mathematics results in not just improvement in our living, but also destruction of the planet earth and its environment which is our only world and which is not our design and construction. Science and mathematics are also used as tools in hegemony, colonization, and other conflicts such as wars, data and media control. So it was a surprise to find that enormous magnitudes of affords in creating history, arts, and activities have been used to make Europe superior for its achievement in science and math in the last 400 years. This tells something about our human nature.

• Even though I graduated from the major in Operations Research which comprises mostly optimizations utilizing programs and algorithms. I never know that the word “algorithm” was from the famous Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. I knew al-Khwarizmi’s books about algebraic equation solving and the number system but I never realized this special connection. He definitely influenced the western world deeply by introducing the decimal system in his mathematics text books. 
  
  
•  I was surprised by the importance of having a “meeting place” for ancient scholars to gather and discuss their research. The “meeting place” served as crucial role of hosing big ideas from big peoples. Places like Alexandria or Jund-i-Shapur acted as huge research schools where knowledge was created, synthesized, upgraded, refined, and if possible, translated. It is interesting to know that scholar like Pythagoras even traveled to India to learn their mathematics. The idea of international students studying at a foreign university can be traced back more than two thousand years ago! 
  
  
•   I was surprised by the fact that the academic exchanges between China and India was scarce before the spread of Buddhism into China. I always thought geographically, neighboring countries should have more chance to exchange information. Also, I didn’t know that Indian astronomers were hired to teach at Astronomical Board of Changan (the place I am from)!  When I was doing elementary school in China, we were taught that Chinese mathematics also was influenced greatly by the Islamic world. However, different from India, Islamic religion didn’t spread across China like Buddhism did. This is a wonder for me considering both India and the Islamic world being neighbors of China.  
  
  
•  According to the author, the principle of place value was discovered independently about four times in the history of mathematics! Mesopotamian used place-value notational system to base 60; Chinese used positional principles in rod numerical computations; Indian used place-value decimal system; and the Maya used positional number system to base 20. In particular, I found that the Maya was one of the two civilizations where the concept of zero originate (another is India which I knew). I was also surprised by the accuracy on Maya’s astronomical observations and calendar constructions (without having proper equipment, how amazing!).