A Tale as Golden as Time

The film entitled “The Story of Maths” was a great short film which actually enhances the appreciation and understanding of Math. Questions like “what is math?” or “how did math start?” or even “how did mathematics progress and develop and how did this affect the lives of the people?” could be answered through this film. It was stated there that throughout history, humans yearned to learn the patterns and other processes that naturally occurred and that math was the one and only discipline which significantly unifies the underlying principles of the world. The concepts of math were naturally installed in the brains of animals, including of course, humans. There is and will always be math in everything that happens in the universe. Humans have discovered this by compiling patterns that they have observed in their environment.  The film featured significant civilizations where it was believed that the understanding of math emerged, developed and progressed and the people in these places have contributed a great deal in allowing people to keep an interest in math.

The documentary started off in Egypt, specifically in the Nile River. It was mentioned that it was where most of the science behind math began and it was also the lifeline of the people inhabiting the area. People in the early ages settled in Egypt due to its marvellous conditions and by living here, they have developed ways to solve daily problems and discovered to make some sense in the patterns occurring naturally. It was also in Egypt where the scroll called the Rhind papyrus and Moscow papyrus, practically mathematical textbooks, were recovered and these particular scrolls have made a huge impact in the mathematical world, specifically presenting trigonometry and calculus concepts and to think that this happened a thousand years before Gottfried and Newton’s existence.

Then they trailed off to the Babylonian civilization (located in Mesopotamia and Sumeria) which rivalled that of Egypt. Their discoveries were more publicized compared to that of the Egyptians. The Babylonians mastered management and manipulation of numbers in order to keep their ruling and power.  It was in this civilization that the base 60 was discovered and this was much more successful and efficient than the number system of the Egyptians. The idea of place value was also discovered in this period. This was what made their number system very successful. The calendar was based on the cycle of the moon. Their number was system was sophisticated but there was a void so after a while, they have discovered zero and this was the first time that zero appeared in the universe of math. There was an amazing trait of the Babylonians and this was the using of fields and constructing the quadratic equation. Babylonians solved problems for their own sake and eventually fell in love with mathematics. But when their power waned, their intellectual love for math also disintegrated.

The last civilization tackled was the Greek civilization. The Greeks were also very passionate about math. They gave contributions of their own and the very significant contribution was the power of proof or the ability of deductive reasoning. Greek math was romantic and intensive and one man was highly recognized for his controversial teachings. He was called Pythagoras. His writings were untraceable, therefore termed controversial. However, it was mentioned that he found a way to convert musical notes into math equations and he came up with this while he was passing by a blacksmith, hammering some tools and thought that music was created.

The film was a great way to induce appreciation or enhanced the interest of the people in math. It was explicit, very concise and informative as well. It was also mounted well so as to keep the attention of the viewers. The goal of the film was to show to the world that math was of grave importance and that is indeed present everywhere, from the smallest microorganisms to the wide and vast cosmos. The film showed that Math was indeed very precious and its tale trails a long way back to the past. But this only proves that knowledge is treasure, no matter how old, is definitely more precious than gold.