James Gow (scholar): Quotes about history

James Gow (scholar) was scholar. Explore interesting quotes on history.
James Gow (scholar): 44 quotes0 likes

“To give here an elaborate account of Pappus would be to create a false impression. His work is only the last convulsive effort of Greek geometry which was now nearly dead and was never effectually revived. It is not so with Ptolemy or Diophantus. The trigonometry of the former is the foundation of a new study which was handed on to other nations indeed but which has thenceforth a continuous history of progress. Diophantus also represents the outbreak of a movement which probably was not Greek in its origin, and which the Greek genius long resisted, but which was especially adapted to the tastes of the people who, after the extinction of Greek schools, received their heritage and kept their memory green. But no Indian or Arab ever studied Pappus or cared in the least for his style or his matter. When geometry came once more up to his level, the invention of analytical methods gave it a sudden push which sent it far beyond him and he was out of date at the very moment when he seemed to be taking a new lease of life.”

James Gow (scholar)

p, 125
A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)

“A student of history, who cares little for Greek or mathematics in particular, but who likes to watch how things grow, will be able to extract from these pages a notion of the whole history of mathematical science down to Newton's time…”

James Gow (scholar)

Preface
A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)

“With Diophantus the history of Greek arithmetic comes to an end. No original work, that we know of, was done afterwards.”

James Gow (scholar)

p, 125
A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)

“The history of Alexandrian mathematics begins with the Elements of Euclid and closes with the Algebra of Diophantus, both of which are founded on the discoveries of several preceding centuries.”

James Gow (scholar)

Preface
A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)

“The history of Greek mathematics is, for the most part, only the history of such mathematics as are learnt daily in all our public schools. …If it was not wanted, as it ought to have been, by our classical professors and our mathematicians, it would have served at any rate to quicken, with some human interest, the melancholy labours of our schoolboys.”

James Gow (scholar)

Preface
A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)