Why were most historically important mathematicians wealthy? Why were they often lawyers and many had pastors for fathers? Why were original results sometimes discovered by two mathematicians independently within a short time of each other? Why did the Italian Fibonacci, speak Arabic?
It all began a couple of years ago, when one of the authors started to write short biographies of important historical mathematicians for the teaching journal Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom. It was felt that teachers generally knew very little about the way the subject developed or the people who developed it. And it was felt that historical knowledge would help them see how the subject progressed and enable them to fit in with the historical episodes that would be of interest to students.
Clearly, the book that developed contains mathematics up to the 17th century, but we are keen to set the subject in those times, to try to give short biographies of the people involved, as well as provide a perspective of the events that led up to the times and led up to the mathematics. Importantly, it is shown that the maths enterprise was not undertaken by a small few, but worked like a relay race. One or a few might take up an idea and develop it, but it often gets only so far. Later, others would take up the idea, the baton, and the relay race to find results continues.
