Note: Each student will be assigned one topic from the list below. Topics are presented on the dates shown.
| Week | Date/Lecture | Talk Topic (Left Column) | Talk Topic (Right Column) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Mar 6 | The rule of false position (source) | The three impossible problems after the greeks (source) |
| 13 | Mar 11 | Mean Proportionals and the Duplication of the Cube (source; see also here) | Thales on the height of the pyramids (source) |
| 14 | Mar 13 | Which Regular Polygons Can Be Constructed? From Euclid to Gauss (source) | Intro to Gauss - Gauss on the Regular Polygon of Seventeen Sides (source; see also here) |
| Spring Break Week | |||
| 15 | Mar 25 | Gauss on hyperbolic geometry (source) | History of the parallel postulate (source; see also here) |
| 16 | Mar 27 | The Pentagram and the Discovery of Incommensurability (source) | Gauss's First Argument for Least Squares (source) |
| 17 | Apr 1 | Archimedes on the quadrature of the parabola (source) | Ptolemy on Trigonometric tables (source) |
| 18 | Apr 3 | Apollonius on conics (source; see also here) | Diophantus (source) |
| 19 | Apr 8 | Ancient Chinese Square Root Algorithms (source) | Historical Development of the Chinese Remainder Theorem in China and India (source) |
| 20 | Apr 10 | "Linear Algebra" in 17th-Century China (source) | Right-Angled Triangles in Ancient China (source; see also here) |
| 21 | Apr 15 | Ancient Indian Square Roots (source) | Ideas of calculus in Medieval India. Series in the Kerala School (source; see also here) |
| 22 | Apr 17 | Ibn al-Haytham on Optics (source) | Ideas of Calculus in the Islamic Golden Age: From Sums of Powers to Integration (source. See here) |
| 23 | Apr 22 | Euler and the bridges of Konigsberg (source) | Euler on Number Theory (source) |
| 24 | Apr 24 | Descartes and the Geometrization of Algebra (source; see also here) | Fermat on Number Theory (source; see also here) |
| 25 | Apr 29 | Fermat's method of infinite descent (source; see also here) | Pascal and the Invention of Probability Theory (source) |
| 26 | May 1 | Fermat's Integration of X^n (source; see also here) | Newton's Discovery of the General Binomial Theorem (source) |
| 27 | May 6 | ||
| 28 | May 8 | ||