A Trinity Western University professor has literally rewritten mathematical history, period.

Dr. Glen Van Brummelen has discovered that the decimal point was used 150 years earlier than scientists previously thought and during a time when it was thought there was little scientific progress.

While researching late medieval and early Renaissance astronomy, Van Brummelen noticed an unexpected usage of a decimal point in a sine table. That鈥檚 when he discovered that Giovanni Bianchini, an Italian court astrologer, used the decimal point in the 1440s, a century prior than thought.

Most mathematicians believed German Jesuit astronomer Christopher Clavius was the first to use the decimal point within a table showing triangular ratios in 1593. The work of Bianchini and others have culminated in an internationally recognized system of notation that people around the world use every day.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 often think of it today, but imagine doing science or commerce where different number systems are used by different people,鈥� he said. 鈥淪uch different systems in weights and measures were one of the causes of the French Revolution, and a cause of the crash of the Mars Polar Lander in 1999.鈥�

His discovery adds to the depth of knowledge about the medieval era, dispelling the popular notion that the medieval era was a time of intellectual stagnation. His work has been published in the journal Historia Mathematica.

鈥淢athematics doesn鈥檛 develop on its own as people often think of it, but rather, in response to situations that arose in other scientific contexts or even in the trades or finance,鈥� Van Brummelen said.

The professor, who is also the dean of TWU鈥檚 Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, explained that math鈥檚 history parallels human history.

He said the global history of the decimal point from ancient times shows that many societal factors contribute to the development of a mathematical system. Although many different civilizations throughout history, including ancient Arabic and Asian cultures, have also invented decimal fractional notation, those earlier forms of notation did not persist until current day. Bianchini and Clavius were instrumental in establishing the modern decimal notation and setting it on its way to eventually become the dominant system worldwide.

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