Philosophy: circa 450 BC

If a cone were cut by a plane parallel to the base, what ought one to think of the surfaces resulting from the section: are they equal or unequal? If they are unequal, they will make the cone have many steplike indentations and unevennesses; but if they are equal, the sections will be equal, and the cone will appear to have the same property as a cylinder, being made up of equal, not unequal, circles, which is most absurd.

--From Maxims of Democritus--

"Philosophers" don't do math much anymore; they don't seem to do much of anything anymore, all the things they used to think about seem to have been taken away from them. But all the old philosophers we learn about, they didn't refuse to consider something because it wasn't "philosophy"; they put their noses into everything and were influenced by it. How practical it used to be to have a philosopher around!

SAT Prep: c. 1650 BC

The BBC covers the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus.

Math makes the world go round. (If you can't keep track of money, you wont have it for long.)

Weapons of mass destruction: 1666

--From Les fortifications--

We have nuclear physics, they had geometry. (I bet they didn't have any problem getting boys interested in math!)

Perspective: 1715

The prodigious and inconceivable Rapidity assigned by the Ptolemaicks to the Heavens, is by the Copernican Scheme taken off, and a far more easy and tolerable Motion substituted in its room. For is it not a far more easy Motion for the Earth to revolve round its own Axis in 24 hours, than for so great a number of far more massy, and far distant Globes, to revolve round the Earth in the same space of time? If the Maintainers of the Ptolemaick Systeme do object against the Motion of the Earth, that it would make us dizzy and shatter our Globe to pieces, what a precipitant, how terrible a Rapidity must that of the Heavens be? What a Velocity must the Sun have to run its course, at the distance 21 or 22 Semidiameters of the Earth? What a Velocity must that of the Fixt Stars...

--From Astro-theology--

Does the Earth spin in the universe or is the Earth fixed and the universe spin around us?

If we were fixed then the star Betelgeuse, which is about 640 light years away, would travel 3.80 X 10^16 km every day at a speed of 1468757.4 times that of light. Since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (other than a rumor) the planet Earth must rotate.

So, if you think the universe revolves around you, hopefully this demonstration of math and physics will convince you of the error of you ways.