ABSTRACT
Mathematical ideas involve number, logic, or spatial configuration and, in particular, the combination or organization of these into systems or structures. This chapter explores the worldwide instances of the diverse expressions of mathematical ideas. It analyses with a particular aspect of human ideation, namely, mathematical ideas. Such ideas exist in all cultures, but which ones are emphasized, how they are expressed, and their particular contexts will vary from culture to culture. The Incas, for example, were intensive data users and so number, logic, and spatial configuration became uniquely combined in their quipus. Ethnomathematics, as it is being addressed, has the goal of broadening the history of mathematics to one that has a multicultural, global perspective. Western mathematical ideas have changed through time; so, too, have philosophies and histories of mathematics. And, moving beyond own Western mathematics, a broader global ongoing history must acknowledge and include the ideas of other cultures.
