The Story of Maths
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YEAR: 2008 | LENGTH: 4 parts (60 minutes each) | SOURCE: BBC
description:
Series about the history of mathematics.
episodes:
01. The Language of the Universe
After showing how fundamental mathematics is to our lives, Marcus du Sautoy explores the mathematics of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece.
In Egypt, he uncovers use of a decimal system based on ten fingers of the hand, while in former Mesopotamia he discovers that the way we tell the time today is based on the Babylonian Base 60 number system.
In Greece, he looks at the contributions of some of the giants of mathematics including Plato, Euclid, Archimedes and Pythagoras, who is credited with beginning the transformation of mathematics from a tool for counting into the analytical subject we know today.
02. The Genius of the East
When ancient Greece fell into decline, mathematical progress stagnated as Europe entered the Dark Ages, but in the East mathematics reached new heights.
Du Sautoy visits China and explores how maths helped build imperial China and was at the heart of such amazing feats of engineering as the Great Wall.
In India, he discovers how the symbol for the number zero was invented and Indian mathematicians’ understanding of the new concepts of infinity and negative numbers.
In the Middle East, he looks at the invention of the new language of algebra and the spread of Eastern knowledge to the West through mathematicians such as Leonardo Fibonacci, creator of the Fibonacci Sequence.
03. The Frontiers of Space
By the 17th century, Europe had taken over from the Middle East as the world’s powerhouse of mathematical ideas. Great strides had been made in understanding the geometry of objects fixed in time and space. The race was now on to discover the mathematics to describe objects in motion.
Marcus explores the work of René Descartes and Pierre Fermat, whose famous Last Theorem would puzzle mathematicians for more than 350 years. He also examines Isaac Newton’s development of the calculus, and goes in search of Leonard Euler, the father of topology or ‘bendy geometry’, and Carl Friedrich Gauss who, at the age of 24, was responsible for inventing a new way of handling equations – modular arithmetic.
04. To Infinity and Beyond
Marcus du Sautoy concludes his investigation into the history of mathematics with a look at some of the great unsolved problems that confronted mathematicians in the 20th century.
After exploring Georg Cantor’s work on infinity and Henri Poincare’s work on chaos theory, he looks at how mathematics was itself thrown into chaos by the discoveries of Kurt Godel, who showed that the unknowable is an integral part of maths, and Paul Cohen, who established that there were several different sorts of mathematics in which conflicting answers to the same question were possible.
He concludes his journey by considering the great unsolved problems of mathematics today, including the Riemann Hypothesis, a conjecture about the distribution of prime numbers. A million-dollar prize and a place in the history books await anyone who can prove Riemann’s theorem.
SIMILAR TITLES:
The Story of 1
Precision: The Measure of All Things
Infinite Secrets of Archimedes
To Infinity and Beyond
Alan and Marcus Go Forth and Multiply
The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion#mathsPhysics
The Story of 1
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YEAR: 2005 | LENGTH: 1 part (60 minutes) | SOURCE: WIKIPEDIAdescription:
The Story of 1 is a BBC documentary about the history of numbers, and in particular, the number 1. It was presented by ex-Monty Python member Terry Jones. It was released in 2005.
Terry Jones first journeys to Africa, where bones have been discovered with notches in them. However, there is no actual way of knowing if they were used for counting. Jones then discusses the Ishango Bone, which must have been used for counting, because there are 60 scratches on each side of the bone. Jones declares this “the birth of one”; a defining moment in history of mathematics. He then journeys to Sumer.
Shortly after farming had been invented and humans were starting to build houses, they started to represent 1 with a token. With this, it was possible for the first time in history to do arithmetic. The Sumarians would enclose a certain number of tokens in a clay envelope and imprint the number of tokens on the outside. However, it was realized that you could simply write the number on a clay tablet. To explore why the development of numbers occurred here and not some other place, Jones travels to Australia and meets a tribe called the Warlpiri. In their language, there are no words for numbers. When an individual is asked how many grandchildren he has, he simply replies he has “many”, while
To explore why the development of numbers occurred here and not some other place, Jones travels to Australia and meets a tribe called the Warlpiri. In their language, there are no words for numbers. When an individual is asked how many grandchildren he has, he simply replies he has “many”, while he in fact has four. In Egypt, the numeral system provides a fascinating glimpse of Egyptian society, as larger numbers seem more applicable to higher strata of society. It went something like this: One was a line, ten was a rope, a hundred a coil of rope (three symbols for smaller numbers, probably applicable to the average Egyptian), a thousand a lotus (a symbol of pleasure), ten thousand was a commanding finger, and a million – a number the Sumerians would never have dreamed of – was the symbol of a prisoner begging for forgiveness. The Egyptians had a standard unit, the cubit, which was instrumental
The Egyptians had a standard unit, the cubit, which was instrumental for building wonders such as the pyramids. Terry Jones then journeys to Greece to cover the time of Pythagoras. Jones discusses with mathematician Marcus de Sautoy Pythagoras’ obsession with numbers, his secret society, his dedication to numbers, the Pythagorean theorem, and his flawed belief that all things could be measured in units (brought down by the attempt to measure the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle, in units relative to the two legs). Archimedes was also in love with numbers. He tried to see what would happen if you took a sphere and turned it into a cylinder. This concept would later be applied to map making. Archimedes lived in Syracuse which at the time was at war with Rome. Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier while working on a mathematical problem. The Romans were not interested in maths, and as a result mathematics declined. The Roman numeral system was clumsy and inefficient. One reason that Terry Jones theorizes might be the
This concept would later be applied to map making. Archimedes lived in Syracuse which at the time was at war with Rome. Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier while working on a mathematical problem. The Romans were not interested in maths, and as a result mathematics declined. The Roman numeral system was clumsy and inefficient. One reason that Terry Jones theorizes might be the reason, was the fact that the numerals that the Romans used were basically the old-fashioned lines of the Ishango bone. Jones discusses India’s invention of a more efficient numeral system, including the invention of the concept of zero. He explains how the concept traveled West to the Caliphate. Then it arrived in Italy where it met fierce resistance. The reason for this was because most people were familiar only with the Roman numerals and not the superior Indian numerals. Eventually, the Hindu-Arabic numerals displaced the Roman ones. Jones discusses finally how Gottfried Leibniz invented the binary system, which is the foundation for modern digital computers. He planned on building a mechanical computer to use this system, but never followed through with the plan. Leibniz was convinced that 1 and 0 were the only numbers anyone really needed. In 1944, a computer called Colossus was used to crack enemy codes during World War II. Computers like Colossus evolved into modern computers, which are used for every type of number calculation.
Jones discusses India’s invention of a more efficient numeral system, including the invention of the concept of zero. He explains how the concept traveled West to the Caliphate. Then it arrived in Italy where it met fierce resistance. The reason for this was because most people were familiar only with the Roman numerals and not the superior Indian numerals. Eventually, the Hindu-Arabic numerals displaced the Roman ones. Jones discusses finally how Gottfried Leibniz invented the binary system, which is the foundation for modern digital computers. He planned on building a mechanical computer to use this system, but never followed through with the plan. Leibniz was convinced that 1 and 0 were the only numbers anyone really needed. In 1944, a computer called Colossus was used to crack enemy codes during World War II. Computers like Colossus evolved into modern computers, which are used for every type of number calculation.SIMILAR TITLES:
The Story of Maths
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