#covidbrain threads series
1. History of Summation

1.0 Introduction
It’s not very well taught in schools, at least in my experience, however, a knowledge of the history of mathematical concepts helps to better understand how they emerged in the first place.

How we count, how multiplication emerged, exponentials, functions; all mathematics in literally every branch has historical context. The great thinkers of their times did not simply have formulae just appear in their minds out of thin air, unless you’re Ramanujan.

Therefore, in this and every Monday #covidbrain thread, I’ll begin with a brief overview of the history and evolution of the concept. In this week’s thread I will discuss Ancient Greek problems such as Zeno’s Paradox, Viete’s groundbreaking use of algebra, and of course Euler.

1.1 an Impossible Possibility
There are a few ancient roots for the summation function, mainly from Greece and India. This thread will cover two examples of Greek sums as they both form excellent demonstrations of regular summations and infinite sums.