crest of the peacock response

 

One thing that struck me was how the Pythagorean theorem took such a long time to complete. I never thought that such a theorem would be so hard to get. It leads me to think about how we are privileged to have so many theorems at our disposal when dealing with problems. We only need to learn the theorems and never thought of how hard mathematicians might have tried to figure that out.

                                              

Another one is how math is a universal language of the world which can be spread across countries. Arabs helped spread the Indian numerals and their associated algorithms to Europe as well as the trigonometry. India and China also exchanged knowledge about the concepts of mathematics, such as kuttaka and qiuyishu. It is obvious that mathematics has universal rules that could be easily understood and communicated between countries.

The third thing is the Bait al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) which contained a large library for the manuscripts that had been collected from various sources; an observatory which became a meeting place of Indian, Babylonian, Hellenistic and, probably, Chinese astronomical traditions. It is amazing how in such early ages they managed to create this place. It also shows how important mathematics is in every culture so that they would take the time and effort to build this house of wisdom for the benefit of exploring mathematics theorems.