MATHEMATICS &RELIGION

GREEK & INDIAJenny Grandfield

Ashley Runck

True or False?

Scholars were mostly religious priests and would ignore any mathematics that seemed to contradict the religious ideals

True or False? Throughout history, the most

noticeable uses of mathematics within a religious context have been through astronomy or astrology. Statistics and Geometry were also used often.

Mathematics & Religion: Greeks

Pythagoras He set up a religious

sect in a Greek colony in southern Italy.

Pythagoras believed that exactly 10 points were necessary to generate the universe, and because of this he was very fond of the number 10.

Plato Plato had his own theory of

creation. His description included a

good god that transformed disorder into order and made an eternal world. He believed God allowed intelligence to be put into the soul, and then the soul into man.

Plato even opened his own Academy.

Aristotle Aristotle only perfected

his interpretation of moral philosophy after learning the basics from Plato.

Aristotle come to his own individual conclusions about life

Using metaphysics, Aristotle gave a proof for God’s existence.

Mathematics & Religion: Roman Empire

Plato’s Academy Plato’s Academy

was closed so that it would prevent them from teaching concepts that were not approved by the Holy Scriptures.

This ended the era of Greek mathematics.

quadrivium The Christian schools throughout the Roman

Empire taught the quadrivium, which is Latin for “the four ways.”

These four subjects included geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music

These teachings were allowed because, unlike Plato’s Academy, they weren’t considered pagan.

Pagan- pertaining to the worship or worshipers of any religion that is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim.

Renaissance Drawing The mathematics of geometry,

specifically perspective drawings, were used widely during the Renaissance.

Artists like Michelangelo, Davinci, and others created paintings, murals, and even painted church walls and ceilings using the techniques of perspective drawings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYBWA-ifEs

Mathematics in a Postmodern Age

A book that explores the nature, historical development and cultural impact of mathematics from a Christian perspective.

MATHEMATICS AND THE DEVINE

As the book Mathematics and the Divine demonstrates, people have made many interesting and vital connections between mathematics and religion over the years. Believers of many faiths have found significant points of contact between their religious outlooks and mathematics.

Early History of the ACMS The Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences

developed initially from a desire on the part of a group of mathematics teachers at Christian colleges to integrate their faith with their academic discipline. From 1976 to 1985 this group operated informally, sponsoring conferences at Wheaton College in 1977, 1979, 1981, and 1983.

At the 1985 conference, held at the King's College, it was decided to incorporate formally, and to expand the scope of interest of the organization to the entire spectrum of the mathematical sciences. A constitution was adopted at that time, and a slate of officers elected. Since then, we have considered various ways to expand the program of the organization.

Religion & Mathematics: India

Religons Hindu: variety of religious traditions Islam: monotheistic religion guided by

the Quran Buddhism: end suffering, achieve

nirvana, and escape cycle of suffering and rebirth

Vedic Mathematics 600 BC The Vedas: 4 that are

complied in Sanskrit Sacrificial Rites and

Rituals Precise measurements Functions of society

Fire Alters List of rules for the construction of

sacrificial fire altars. The altars were required to be constructed

of five layers of burnt brick, with the further condition that each layer consist of 200 bricks and that no two adjacent layers have congruent arrangements of bricks

Also, you could construct fire altars which have different shapes but occupy the same area

Shrauta Yajna being performed

Sulba Sutras Appendices to the Vedas Includes more than just rituals: the

construction manuals used for geometrical shapes including square, circles, and rectangles and proofs of Pythagoras’s Theorem

Pythagoras's theorem The Baudhayana Sulbasutra

gives us the case: The rope which is stretched

across the diagonal of a square produces an area double the size of the original square.

The Katyayana Sulbasutra gives us the case:

The rope which is stretched along the length of the diagonal of a rectangle produces an area which the vertical and horizontal sides make together.

Approximation of square root of 2

Increase a unit length by its third and this third by its own fourth less the thirty-fourth part of that fourth

Astronomy Aryabhata Vedanga Jyotishya Calendar "Indian Vedic astrology is important

to the conduct of any of life's important events such as marriage, applying for a post or admission, buying a house or starting a new business. To millions of Hindus the kundali is an invaluable possession that charts the course of life for a man or a woman from the time of his birth, all ascertained by Vedic mathematics and astrology."

Astronomy in Ancient India

Celestial Observatory, Tool for keeping track of the constellations, Sun Dial

Without religion, the world we live in today would not be the same.

- Questions????