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Mathematics was nowhere in architecture, engineering or technology before the renaissance. Heuristics, written or taught were the only things used. There were n

Mathematics was nowhere in architecture, engineering or technology before the renaissance. Heuristics, written or taught were the only things used. There were no formulas, even geometry, that was invented BC had no place in architecture of 13th century.

pazimzadeh 7y ago
...in Europe?
- dilippkumar 7y ago
  In Europe, after the collapse of the Roman empire and before the start of the Renaissance - in what popular culture refers to as “The Dark Ages” (tbh: I’m not an expert in medieval europe. I’ll trust the GP comment that nothing happened during the medieval era)
twic 7y ago
When you say "before the renaissance", you mean "between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, in Europe", right? Because, for example, the ancient Greeks used mathematics in the design of siege weapons - you have to solve a cube root to work out how big the torsion springs should be in a ballista: http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/Catapults.html http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/Catapults...
- superpermutat0r 7y ago
  This is a hypothesis, no written text in architecture or engineering contains mathematics. It was all heuristics. Euclides geometry was not used in architecture before renaissance.
eternalban 7y ago
Euro-centric historic chauvinism never ceases to amaze. It is always worth a chuckle to hear for example how "Rome conquered the known world" and your bon mot here how "Mathematics was nowhere in architecture, engineering or technology before the renaissance." It is truly astounding.
- CMCDragonkai 7y ago
  A very small known world. Smaller than most large empires in land area.
  - eternalban 7y ago
    It's not merely that. It is the willful disregard for the fact that Rome itself was very much aware of Parthian and Sassanid Persia, India, and China. An entire city in Iran was built by Roman prisoners of war! I sometimes wonder if the persistence of this willful disregard, as a pedagogical factor, plays a role in current geopolitical matters which finds the West in disarray as to how to respond to the reemergence of the "unknown world".
    - sifar 7y ago
      Even before Rome, these regions were not unknown. The Greeks even fought them, settled there. One of my personal long term topics[1] to research is how these two hitherto separate schools of thought have influenced each other. The western and the oriental thought may have a common genesis. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
- superpermutat0r 7y ago
  I believe you misunderstood me. Take any architecture-engineering book before 14th century, and I mean go back to the dawn of man, and you won't even find Pythagoras theorem. It was all collection of heuristics that worked and the collections were made from hundreds of years of trial and error. Big buildings in Rome were all built with heuristics that had no formulas. Euclidean geometry in architecture is a modern thing.

pazimzadeh 7y ago

...in Europe?

dilippkumar 7y ago
In Europe, after the collapse of the Roman empire and before the start of the Renaissance - in what popular culture refers to as “The Dark Ages” (tbh: I’m not an expert in medieval europe. I’ll trust the GP comment that nothing happened during the medieval era)

twic 7y ago

When you say "before the renaissance", you mean "between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, in Europe", right? Because, for example, the ancient Greeks used mathematics in the design of siege weapons - you have to solve a cube root to work out how big the torsion springs should be in a ballista: http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/Catapults.html http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/Catapults...

superpermutat0r 7y ago
This is a hypothesis, no written text in architecture or engineering contains mathematics. It was all heuristics. Euclides geometry was not used in architecture before renaissance.

eternalban 7y ago

Euro-centric historic chauvinism never ceases to amaze. It is always worth a chuckle to hear for example how "Rome conquered the known world" and your bon mot here how "Mathematics was nowhere in architecture, engineering or technology before the renaissance." It is truly astounding.

CMCDragonkai 7y ago
A very small known world. Smaller than most large empires in land area.
- eternalban 7y ago
  It's not merely that. It is the willful disregard for the fact that Rome itself was very much aware of Parthian and Sassanid Persia, India, and China. An entire city in Iran was built by Roman prisoners of war! I sometimes wonder if the persistence of this willful disregard, as a pedagogical factor, plays a role in current geopolitical matters which finds the West in disarray as to how to respond to the reemergence of the "unknown world".
  - sifar 7y ago
    Even before Rome, these regions were not unknown. The Greeks even fought them, settled there. One of my personal long term topics[1] to research is how these two hitherto separate schools of thought have influenced each other. The western and the oriental thought may have a common genesis. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
superpermutat0r 7y ago
I believe you misunderstood me. Take any architecture-engineering book before 14th century, and I mean go back to the dawn of man, and you won't even find Pythagoras theorem. It was all collection of heuristics that worked and the collections were made from hundreds of years of trial and error. Big buildings in Rome were all built with heuristics that had no formulas. Euclidean geometry in architecture is a modern thing.