Odds & Ends

In his book The Crest of the Peacock, George Ghevarghese Joseph documents how the popular picture of the mystical, irrational Orient and the logical, rational Occident breaks down when you actually look at the history of the spread of mathematical ideas. He starts with the tired old “Greeks Did Everything First” narrative, and then gradually builds up a more complex — and more accurate — picture of how mathematical ideas spread and evolved.

Here I’m going to show you some of the diagrams he used to help illustrate his case: