Cultures of Computation and Quantification in the Ancient World

Beschreibung

This book sheds light on the variety of mathematical cultures in general. To do so, it concentrates on cultures of computation and quantification in the ancient world, mainly in ancient China, South Asia, and the Ancient Near East and offers case studies focused on numbers, quantities, and operations, in particular in relation to mathematics as well as administrative and economic activities. 
The various chapters focus on the different ways and contexts of shaping numbers and quantities, and on the procedures applied to them. The book places special emphasis on the processes of emergence of place-value number systems, evidenced in the three geographical areas under study All these features yield essential elements that will enable historians of mathematics to further capture the diversity of computation practices in their contexts, whereas previous historical approaches have tended to emphasize elements that displayed uniformity within “civilizational” blocks. The book includes editions and translations of texts, some of them published here for the first time, maps, and conventions for editions of ancient texts. It thereby offers primary sources and methodological tools for teaching and learning. 
The volume is aimed at historians and philosophers of science and mathematics, historians of the ancient worlds, historians of economics, sinologists, indologists, assyriologists, as well as undergraduate, graduate students and teachers in mathematics, the history and philosophy of science and mathematics, and in the history of ancient worlds.
This book sheds light on the variety of mathematical cultures in general. To do so, it concentrates on cultures of computation and quantification in the ancient world, mainly in ancient China, South Asia, and the Ancient Near East and offers case studies focused on numbers, quantities, and operations, in particular in relation to mathematics as well as administrative and economic activities. 
The various chapters focus on the different ways and contexts of shaping numbers and quantities, and on the procedures applied to them. The book places special emphasis on the processes of emergence of place-value number systems, evidenced in the three geographical areas under study All these features yield essential elements that will enable historians of mathematics to further capture the diversity of computation practices in their contexts, whereas previous historical approaches have tended to emphasize elements that displayed uniformity within “civilizational” blocks. The book includes editions and translations of texts, some of them published here for the first time, maps, and conventions for editions of ancient texts. It thereby offers primary sources and methodological tools for teaching and learning. 
The volume is aimed at historians and philosophers of science and mathematics, historians of the ancient worlds, historians of economics, sinologists, indologists, assyriologists, as well as undergraduate, graduate students and teachers in mathematics, the history and philosophy of science and mathematics, and in the history of ancient worlds.
Offers an approach to the diversity of scientific cultures based on case studies dealing with mathematical sources Links the history of mathematics to the history of ancient worlds Sheds a new light on the history of place-value systems

Autor*in

Karine Chemla

Themen in »Cultures of Computation and Quantification in the Ancient World«

History of Mathematical Cultures History of Administrative and Economic Practices History and Philosophy of Number Cultures of Computation Operations and Algorithms Diyala

Stimmen zu »Cultures of Computation and Quantification in the Ancient World«

“The volume is a success. … The editors are to be commended for having attracted a wide range of authors in terms of national and gender diversity, also not always present in this field. Cultures of Computation and Quantification in the Ancient World will be of considerable use to specialists not only in the three geographical areas of focus, but also to historians, philosophers, and sociologists of premodern mathematics in all regions and traditions.” (Stephen Chrisomalis, Historia Mathematica, August 18, 2025) 

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