ABSTRACT
Mesopotamian mathematics is the overture to Greek mathematics, the acme of mathematical achievement in the ancient world. The very word ‘mathematics’ is Greek as are many mathematical terms such as lemma, theorem, hypotenuse, orthogonal, polygon; the Greek alphabet itself is used as a standard part of mathematical notation; the concept of mathematical proof, the foundation of all mathematics, is a Greek idea. The history of mathematics neither begins nor ends with the Greeks, but it is only in sixteenth century Italy that it is matched and surpassed for the first time when a group of Italian mathematicians discovered how to solve cubics and quartics. Greek civilization was absorbed by the Romans, but for all their aqueducts, roads, baths and maintenance of public order, it has been said of them that their only contribution to mathematics was when Cicero rediscovered the grave of Archimedes and had it restored.
