Can You Solve These Ten Medieval Mathematical Riddles?
Explore ten medieval math riddles written by Alcuin of York, the great scholar of Charlemagne’s court. These clever puzzles from the early Middle Ages reveal how medieval students learned logic, numbers, and reasoning — and they’re still fun to solve today.
Creative Geometries: Hooking Up Data in the Middle Ages
In this lecture I will explore the close relationships in medieval creative practices among geometric shapes and the human ability to craft original works.
Mercantile Arithmetic in Renaissance Italy: A Translation and Study of Selected Passages from a Vernacular Abbaco Work
This essay is a study of a Renaissance Italian manuscript which has been published under the title Arte Giamata Aresmetica (‘The Art Called Arithmetic’).
Historians Challenge Oxford’s Claim of World’s Oldest Zero
An international group of historians of Indian mathematics challenges Oxford’s findings around the age and importance of a manuscript thought to contain the oldest known zero.
The First Zero
When did the mathematical zero begin being used? New research revealed this week by the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries shows that a manuscript from India bearing the symbol was written in the 3rd or 4th century, making it the world’s oldest recorded origin of the zero that we use today.
Leonardo, Rapunzel and the Mathematics of Hair
From Leonardo da Vinci to the Brothers Grimm our fascination with hair has endured in art and science.
Can You Solve Alcuin’s Puzzles?
A man had to take a wolf, a goat and a bunch of cabbages across a river. The only boat he could find could only take two of them at a time. But he had been ordered to transfer all of these to the other side in good condition. How could this be done.
Why learning numbers was so hard in medieval Europe
Most history books gloss over the introduction of numbers, but a recent article explains that ‘the uptake of the new numerals was slow, problematic, and spasmodic’
Teaching Math in the Middle Ages
Today I would like to talk about the places mathematics and mathematical pedagogy in particular appear in the Latin writing of the medieval world.
Medieval Studies and STEM
Here are 15 ways that medieval studies and STEM are working together.
Mathematical games in Europe around the year 1000
This paper addresses the question: which board games could Gerbert have played? There are also astronomical games.
Medieval Math Problems
A messenger is sent to a town and advances daily by twenty miles. In how many days will another messenger, sent five days later and advancing daily by thirty miles, overtake him?
Apocalyptic Calculators of the Later Middle Ages
The purpose of my talk today is to explore why and how astrology became an accepted tool for apocalyptic calculation in the later Middle Ages.
Experience and Meaning in the Cathedral Labyrinth Pilgrimage
A medieval design based in Sacred Geometry principles, this unicursal path through concentric circles is a metaphorical container for spiritualjourneying.
Four Medieval Manuscripts With Mathematical Games
Focuses on the medieval manuscripts of Bodleian Library, Sussex College, Gonville and Caius College that present mathematical games. How the Josephus Problem was presented in Bodleian Library manuscript; Explanation on symbols in Sussex College manuscript which describe the Josephus Problem; Errors of presenting the problem founded in the manuscript of Gonville and Caius College.
Literature, Logic and Mathematics in the Fourteenth Century
This thesis assesses the extent to which fourteenth-century Middle English poets were interested in, and influenced by, traditions of thinking about logic and mathematics.
The Transmission of Medieval Mathematics and the Origins of Gothic Architecture
Mathematics and art history, two seemingly separate fields, ultimately relate to and complement one another through the medium of architecture.
The Calamitous Fourteenth Century in England: All Doom and Gloom?
This was a fantastic paper given at the Crown and Country in Late medieval England session at KZOO. There were only two papers but both were interesting and enjoyable. This paper delved into the history of science in late medieval England and examined why the fourteenth century, a time that is usually synonymous with doom and gloom, plague and uprising, wasn’t all that bad upon closer observation.
The Scientific World of the Crown of Aragon under James I
This article seeks to provide a general overview of the cultural landscape during the reign of James I, with a particular focus on science.
Hidden in Plain Sight: The “Pietre di Paragone” and the Preeminence of Medieval Measurements in Communal Italy
Propelled by an active engagement with measurements, the medieval communes devised a revolutionary method to preserve these measurements, which I call Pietre di Paragone.
The Oxford Calculators
Oxford’s medieval philosophers deserve greater recognition, says Mark Thakkar
Jacopo da Firenze and the beginning of Italian vernacular algebra
Whatever the reason, nobody seems to have taken an interest in the treatise before Warren Van Egmond inspected it in the mid-seventies during the preparation of his global survey of Italian Renaissance manuscripts concerned with practical mathematics.
History of Mathematics Education in the European Middle Ages
From the point of view of mathematics education, the Dark Ages are even ‘darker’ than other aspects of literate culture.
Rithmomachia: the lost mathematical treasure of the dark ages
Many presume that the inventor of Rithmomachia is Boethius or perhaps even Pythagoras. The oldest piece of written evidence dating back to 1030, however, depicts the original creator to be a monk named Asilo.
