"Nowhere in all ancient mathematics do we find any attempt at what we call demonstration. No argumentation was presented, but only the prescription of certain rules: "Do such and so." We are ignorant of the way the theorems were found... To those who have been educated in Euclid's strict argumentation, the entire Oriental way of reasoning seems at first strange and highly unsatisfactory. But this strangeness wears off when we realize that most of the mathematics we teach our present-day engineers and technicians is still of the "do such, do so" type, without much attempt at rigorous demonstration. Algebra is still being taught in many high schools as a set of rules rather than as a science of deduction. Oriental mathematics never seems to have been emancipated from the millenial influence of the problems of technology and administration, for the use of which it had been invented."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

Sources

, A Concise History of Mathematics (1948)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mathematics_education