from Hacker News

Why didn't the Romans contribute much to mathematics?

by curtis on 8/25/19, 12:15 AM with 191 comments

• by olooney on 8/25/19, 1:08 AM

  Romans aren't the outlier here. Most ancient civilizations had a similar level of accomplishment; a one or two outstanding mathematicians every century, a few practical applications, some new rules of thumb. We did have a dark age, after the Romans after all, which likewise produced little (not none) new math.

  The question should rather be, what made the Greeks (and, later, others who adopted their deductive, axiomatic method) so exceptionally productive at mathematics?

  Or to paraphrase Wigner, why is Hellenistic mathematics so unreasonably effective?

• by riazrizvi on 8/25/19, 2:35 AM

  > "There was once a workman who made a glass cup that was unbreakable. So he was given an audience of the Emperor with his invention; he made Caesar give it back to him and then threw it on the floor. Caesar was as frightened as could be. But the man picked up his cup from the ground: it was dented like a bronze bowl; then he took a little hammer out of his pocket and made the cup quite sound again without any trouble. After doing this he thought he had himself seated on the throne of Jupiter, especially when Caesar said to him: 'Does anyone else know how to blow glass like this?' Just see what happened. He said not, and then Caesar had him beheaded. Why? Because if his invention were generally known we should treat gold like dirt. " (Satyricon 51)

  This apocryphal story on economic incentives vs progressive incentives is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago.

• by WalterBright on 8/25/19, 2:12 AM

  I suspect the roman numeral system played a bigger role in retarding roman mathematics than the reddit postings suggest.

  After all, it's fairly well known that the characteristics of a particular programming language have a strong influence on the way the language is used. (For instance, people don't do OOP or FP using C.)

• by w8rbt on 8/25/19, 2:10 AM

  I was under the impression that the Romans were more applied/practical and less theoretical, but I may be wrong. I got that notion from a professor I had years ago who was fond of saying, "The Romans built roads. The Greeks talked about building roads." Has anyone else ever heard that saying?

• by mjfl on 8/25/19, 1:31 AM

  They probably innovated in math, in some form of risk modeling or something, but no single fancy intellectual wrote it all down:

  https://priceonomics.com/how-maritime-insurance-built-ancien...

• by boomboomsubban on 8/25/19, 1:29 AM

  I'm not an expert here, but wasn't the development of "zero" a rather monumental leap that was required before you could advance past Greek math? The spread into the Islamic world certainly enabled them to finally push past the Greeks.

• by dwheeler on 8/25/19, 1:38 PM

  In general the ancient Romans were more interested in mathematical application, instead of abstraction. I think that's true for many other ancient civilizations as well. It's not true that the Romans didn't understand mathematics, they were spectacular engineers. They just focused on something different.

  The Romans invented Roman numerals, and it's important to acknowledge that this was a mathematical achievement even though we don't use them as much any more. By putting smaller numbers in front of larger ones, they created a number writing system where you did not have to learn a large number of symbols yet any particular number was short and easy to write. Greek numbers had separate symbols not only for one through nine, but for each of the symbols 10 through 90, which meant you had to learn a lot more symbols for just one through 99.

  It's true that doing calculations with Roman numerals is a pain, especially division, but I don't think the Romans thought this was a big deal. Calculations were typically done using an abacus anyway, so you simply needed a simple way to record results.

• by strainer on 8/25/19, 3:17 AM

  Consider the title of this famous Great work wrote later : "The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing"

  It has a graceful theme which is perhaps not accidental for mathematical inspiration. The same symbolic methods, being symbolic could have been painted as "domination and sacrificing" but that might not temper a mindset as mathematically conducive as notions of "completion and balancing".

  A cultures achievements in different areas could owe substantially to the spectrum of mindsets which it hosts and celebrates.

• by 29athrowaway on 8/25/19, 8:40 AM

  Paper makes you productive. Romans did not have it.

  They had papyrus, parchments and wax tablets, none of them were as convenient or affordable as paper.

  The adoption of paper was what really set things in motion in Europe, the Renaissance.

• by Gatsky on 8/25/19, 1:43 AM

  Makes you wonder what will be said for our era in 500 years time...

• by oneepic on 8/25/19, 1:12 AM

  O/T: One real answer, and multiple bot posts, including one about removing another real person's comment. As a person who doesn't read much Reddit, it leaves a really strange impression.

  Anyway, the top answer was still a cool read.

• by LeonB on 8/25/19, 6:23 AM

  Yeh, what have the Romans ever done for us?

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo

• by williamDafoe on 8/25/19, 4:12 AM

  I bet it's a bitch to learn addition or multiplication using Roman numerals!

• by fortran77 on 8/25/19, 2:45 AM

  We still use their numbering system today, in prefaces and clocks!

• by known on 8/25/19, 3:50 AM

  The Arabic countries led by the Muslims were the most advanced scientists/engineers in the world, until they let the religious crazies take over. J https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_and_engine...