Assignments for Week 2

R = Readings ._._. W = Writings

1. (R) In our online textbook read the chapter on Egypt and Babylon. Also read my "lecture" for the week.

2. (RW) STANDING ASSIGNMENT EVERY WEEK: Read the parts (if any) of your "general history" book corresponding to this week's material. You are encouraged to mail in ("report to the class") anything interesting or important that you found in your reading that's not in the online material.

3. (W) From the exercises on Egyptian mathematics:
   • 2 (multiplication)
   • 4 (unit fractions)
   • 5 (false position)
   • 8 [3 persons; last numerator is 3] (proportional distribution)
   • 11 (pedagogy by example)

4. (W) From the exercises on Babylonian mathematics:
   • 1 [1265 only] (sexagesimal)
   • 3c (multiplication)
   • 7 (linear systems)
   • 11 [first sentence only; the rest is a misprint] (cubic)
   • 12 (interpolation)

5. (R) (optional) Some warnings about Dr. Allen's suggested Web readings
   • Here's a direct link to the document on "Pi in the Bible".
   • As far as I can tell, the document on "Egyptian treatment of quadrilaterals" no longer exists.
   • The laudatory review of Teresi's book might be supplemented by the more critical (and more substantive) review by Anthony Grafton, American Scientist 91 (March-April 2003) 169-171. His main criticism is the same as Allen's: Teresi exaggerates the extent to which the scientific discoveries of non-Western civilizations have been ignored in the past.