Mathematical Happenings

Mathematical Happenings Name: Institution: Mathematical Happenings Development of mathematics occurred in different stages from the ancient times as people questioned and modified discoveries that had earlier been done by their predecessors. During the 1st Millennium BC, two of the major mathematical discoveries done were the discovery of Area of a Circle and π and Irrationality of the square root of two. Archimedes discovered the area of the circle together with the approximation of π as 3.142. Pythagoras established irrationality of square root of two as he studied the relationship between different angles of a triangle. Archimedes was a Greek mathematician who spent most of his time studying different mathematical approaches where he highly used the method of exhaustion. This method had been used by other mathematicians and involved following an almost infinite process until they reached the end. He discovered that the area of any circle is equal to a right angled triangle in which one of the sides about the right angle is equal to the radius and the other side equal to the circumference of the circle. In modern algebraic form, Archimedes discovered that the area is given by π (approx. 3.142) multiplied by the square of the radius. It is not the area that intrigued people, but how the renowned mathematician concluded that π was approximately 3.1428... This theorem was later proved by other mathematicians using different approaches (Calinger, 2000). Discovery of the area of a circle was phenomenon in development of mathematics. It is alleged that Archimedes ran on the streets of Greece naked af...