Oct 13 - Was Pythagoras Chinese?

I think it does make a difference to our students' learning if we acknowledge non-European sources of mathematics. The main reason is having someone to relate to. While, as adults, we don't necessarily look for role models, we forget that children do. Showing how mathematics was developed in each culture, can have long lasting impacts on someone's identity in terms of how they relate to mathematics. Knowing that your ancestors were hot on the subject can bring a sense of belonging and connection to the subject. Therefore, teaching mathematics history in a classroom that has diverse backgrounds is another avenue for inspiring the students.

I do not oppose naming theorems after the person who invented them. However, I think mathematics would be much cleaner if the name of the Theorem would be suggestive of what it's about. This can be seen in the more modern theorems where theorems are not named after the mathematician who invented them. So I guess instead of "Pythagoras's theorem" we could just call it the "90 degree Triangle-Square relationship" or something like that.