\[ **BT: [[knowledge]]** ] --- # mathematics ## history and foundations of mathematics ### history of mathematics #### the development of mathematics in general, through ancient, medieval, and modern times ##### ancient and medieval periods ###### ideas and methods originating or developing in Mesopotamia and Egypt ###### Greek and Hellenistic mathematics ==perfect numbers== [[Per the philosophers in ancient Greece, perfect numbers were the summit of existence.]][^1] [[As Thomas Taylor explains it, perfect numbers were the realisation of that happy space between too much and too little.]][^2] ==three (3)== [[’In the nature of things exists something which has beginning, middle and end. To such a form and nature they attributed the number Three, saying that whatsoever has a middle is triform; so they called every perfect thing.’]][^3] - see also: [[religion#quasi-scientific and magical cults; e.g., numerology, astrology]] ###### the Middle Ages: Islamic mathematics and its transmission to the West ###### mathematics in early imperial China [[In early imperial China, there was a belief that sound was distributed in certain ways throughout the year; calculating and measuring this was as critical as calculating the seasons.]][^4] ## branches of mathematics ## applications of mathematics ### mathematics as a calculatory science [[In early imperial China, there was a belief that sound was distributed in certain ways throughout the year; calculating and measuring this was as critical as calculating the seasons.]][^4] [^1]: Thomas Taylor, *[[Taylor, Theoretic Arithmetic of the Pythagoreans, 1816|The Theoretic Arithmetic of the Pythagoreans]]* (London: J. Valpy, 1816; Samuel Weiser, 1972), p. 30. citations refer to the 1972 edition. [^2]: Thomas Taylor, *[[Taylor, Theoretic Arithmetic of the Pythagoreans, 1816|The Theoretic Arithmetic of the Pythagoreans]]* (London: J. Valpy, 1816; Samuel Weiser, 1972), p. 30. citations refer to the 1972 edition. [^3]: Thomas Stanley, *[[Stanley, Pythagoras, 2010|Pythagoras: His Life and Teachings. A Compendium of Classical Sources]]*, modernized and ed. by James Wasserman (Ibis Press, 2010), chapter 4. EPUB. [^4]: Noa Hegesh, ‘[[Hegesh, ‘Mind the Gap’, 2021|Mind the Gap: Acoustical Answers to Cosmological Concerns in First-Century B.C.E. China]]’, *Isis*, vol. 112, no. 4 (2021), p. 649. <https://doi.org/10.1086/717069>.