Ancient sources of information

Our chief sources of information concerning ancient Egyptian geometry are the Moscow and Rhind papyri. A Scottish scholar and antiquary, A.M.Rhind discovered in 1858 in Egypt and bought an ancient Egyptian papyrus found in some ruins in Thebes. (1) __________. The papyrus is a copy of 1650 B.C. of much earlier writings of the latter part of the 1900 B.C. The entire work emphasizes the two concepts that particularly characterize the Maths of the early Egyptians: the consistent use of additive procedures and computations with fractions. Most of problems are of practical nature. (2) __________.

The Moscow papyrus also referred to as the Golenishchev papyrus for the man who owned it before its acquisition by the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts, was probably written about 1850 B.C. (3) __________. This work shows that the Egyptians were familiar with the formula for the area of a hemisphere and the correct formula for the volume of a truncated square pyramid .

(4) __________. There are various conjectures about how the Egyptians could develop this procedure, but the papyrus offers no help. This formula is often referred to as the Egyptians ‘greatest pyramid’ Of the 110 problems in the papyri 26 concern the computation of land areas and volumes. The ancient Egyptians recorded their work on stone and papyrus resisting the ages because of Egypt’s dry climate. There is no documentary evidence that the ancient Egyptians were aware of the ‘Pythagorean theorem’.

(5) __________. Egyptian geometry arose from the necessity. The annual inundation of the Nile Valley forced the Egyptians to develop some systems for re-determining land markings; in fact, the word ‘surveying’ means ‘measurement of the earth’. The Babylonians likewise faced an urgent need for Maths in the construction of the great engineering structures (marsh drainage, irrigation and flood control) for which they were famous. Similar undertakings and geometrical accomplishments occurred in India and China. (6) __________.

In spite of the empirical nature of ancient oriental geometry, with its complete neglect of proof and the lack of difference between exact and approximate truth, mathematicians are nevertheless struck by the extent and the diversity of the problems so successfully attacked. (7) __________.