As Mathematics Rose in the East

                 The first blog that I wrote focused on the first few countries that used mathematics as their human activities, this time, let us take a little journey on a few more countries as Marcus du Sautoy travels around the world to unravel the mysteries of maths.

            Let us take a look at China in today’s world. As a typical citizen could describe, China is a communist country that continues to strive upon achieving economic prosperity in almost all aspects in a fast changing world. A sport enthusiast could describe the country as active in the Olympics especially in gymnastics, table tennis, diving and the like. Interestingly, in engineering, they also stand out. He first featured the Great Wall of China as a work of math specifically in engineering. This part was quite depressing since when I was in China, I was not able to travel to Beijing to see the great wall. Moreover, it was also in China that place values become significant. But what made me more astonished was the use of math in the schedule of how the Emperor slept with concubines within a particular number of days. Cryptography was also tackled by the host which was quite very technical in that age. Until now, indeed, Chinese people are excelling in mathematics in a good number of international competitions. Now we know that good roots bear good fruits.

            Do you think zero is worthless? Do you think it’s bad luck? This time, we see zero as a very useful and a very significant number in math. The number has even solved the problem of ancient people in their number systems. Great thanks to India! Also, from the establishment of the number zero, the concept of the existence of “infinite number” entered. It was also in India that the principles of trigonometry came into papers. I see this part of the episode as very interesting because of the number zero. I was amused of how this number from the concept of “nothingness” came into existence. So don’t be sad if you got zero in a quiz.

            Nothing could be more fascinating enough when it comes to your favorite. Algebra. The thing that I like about this subject is that it’s like you are just playing around with variables and numbers and analyzing problems. I couldn't explain the happiness it gives me as I get the right answers in mathematical problems using algebra. Maybe, this is also because I have a middle eastern blood, or I’m just really into it. All in all, this episode gave me a similar impact as to that of the previous one. I am looking forward to seeing more episodes of this series.