> Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in number theory I wouldn't argue about it, but there's actually lots of interesting ways to look at

> Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in number theory I wouldn't argue about it, but there's actually lots of interesting ways to look at mathematics that do not come from Europe. For example, Chinese counting rods as expounded by Liu Hui or Seki Takakazu's theory of determinants. Sure, with some twisting around, you can show how the way they worked with polynomials or systems of equations is the same as how we teach it today in the west, but if you look at the way they thought of things, not how we translate them today, you get to appreciate a different mode of thought, just like reading Galois's original papers, badly written as they are, give you an insight into how he thought of polynomial equations, permutations, and substitutions. Even Mayans' astronomical calculations (that is, calculations about the stars, not unimaginably big calculations) offer unique insights. You really do get a narrow view of mathematics if you only ever get it from one cultural tradition. Even within European mathematics there are lots of culturally different ways of doing things, such as differences in notation and nomenclature (e.g. "tan" or "tg", "[0,1)" or "[0,1[", "distribution" or "generalised function"). For example, Soviet mathematics has a very unique and distinct flavour, driven by the needs of engineering and analysis and the pressure to produce science that served the proletariat. Mathematics, like philosophy, is a very human affair, rooted in the ways that humans think and communicate. It is thus also important to not separate the humans from the ideas that they produce. Ideas don't form in a Platonic void; they come from humans and the cultures they lived in.