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There are many hundreds of postage stamps relating to mathematics, ranging from the earliest forms of counting to the modern computer age. Here you will meet many of the mathematicians who contributed to this story – influential figures such as Pythagoras, Archimedes, Newton and Einstein – and will learn about those areas, such as navigation, astronomy and art, whose study aided this development.
This website is aimed at anyone interested in mathematics and its applications. Although parts of it assume some knowledge of school- or college- level mathematics, most of it should be of interest to those without this background. In particular, we hope that it will also attract a philatelic audience.
This is not a history of mathematics in the conventional sense of the word. Several important mathematicians and topics are omitted, due to the absence of suitable stamps featuring them, while others may have assumed undue prominence because of the abundance of attractive images. Where appropriate we have let the stamps dictate the story.
Postage stamps are an attractive vehicle for presenting mathematics and its development to general audiences.
We are grateful to the postal authorities whose stamps are featured here. Anyone who feels that their rights have been infringed is invited to contact us and we will correct the situation as soon as possible.
| Matemática: uma história filatélica |
| Dez Fórmulas Matemáticas |
| Contando pelos dedos |
| Matemática antiga |
| Egito, Mesopotâmia e Grécia |
| Pirâmides Egípcias |
| Matemática Egípcia |
| Matemática mesopotâmica |
| Tales e Pitágoras |
| Teorema de Pitágoras |
| Atenas |
| Academia de Platão |
| Alexandria |
| Euclides |
| Arquimedes |
| Astronomia Grega |
| China |
| Magic Squares |
| Matemática Chinesa |
| Índia |
| Maias e Incas |
| Jogos Antigos |
| Xadrez |
| Jogo de Go |
| Cientistas Islâmicos |
| Albrecht Dürer |
| Portuguese navigation |
| The age of exploration |
| Globos |
| Mapas |
| Pedro Nunes |
| Pedro Nunes - Portugal |
| Navigational instruments |
| Quadrantes, sextantes e octantes |
| Nicolaus Copernicus |
| Tycho Brahe |
| Johannes Kepler |
| Galileo Galilei |
| Reforming the calendar |
| The low countries |
| Logaritmos |
| Early calculating devices |
| China e Japão |
| René Descartes |
| Mersenne e Fermat |
| Blaise Pascal |
| Carl Friedrich Gauss |
| New geometries |
| Abel e Galois |
| Rússia |
| Europa Oriental |
| Estatística |
| Mathematical physics |
| The nature of light |
| Albert Einstein |