Back to Square One: Journey to the Origins of Mathematics

          The first episode of The Story of Maths series is entitled "The Language of the Universe." The host, Marcus du Sautoy, is an Oxford professor who traveled back in time to search for the origin of mathematics from the ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece.

          I am interested in this kind of documentaries since it involves history - one of the fields that I enjoy. I have learned a little about its background and historical approach during high school when one of my teachers introduced them in our history class. This video had found a way of merging history and mathematics altogether.

          Marcus first toured us to ancient Egypt. It is located at the northeastern part of Africa where the world's longest river, Nile, is situated. This river had been the source of living of the people and flooding of the river serves as a sign to start another year for them. What intrigues me is the accuracy of using of the river as a mark for another year, making me popped a question in my mind - "Is the flooding of the Nile a reliable basis for tracking time?," "How accurate is a natural phenomena to base the time?" or "Does the universe have a pattern in telling time?"

          The ancient Egyptians were the first practical solvers and they were able to apply mathematics in the bureaucracy and land management. He showed how the ancient Egyptians used the numeral system in the hieroglyphs. He uncovered that the decimal system that we use now where it is actually based on the ten fingers on our hand. The ancient Egyptians used various symbols to denote numbers but they do not have a fixed place value system. The symbols used by their number system challenges me. I think that kind of system will not work on me because I suck at drawing. Among the application of mathematics are splitting the loaves of bread among a group of workers, land division and constructing dikes in the riverbanks. They were earliest users of the binary numbers. They have used the power of fractions (e.g. 1/2 to 1/4 then to 1/8 and so on). They were able to design a 3-4-5 triangle which became the foundation of the Pyramids of Giza and later applied in the studying the land.  With these innovations, the concept began to pop in my mind that they were the first engineers in the world.

          Marcus' second trip was in Damascus, the center of economy and trade of the ancient Babylonia. The Babylonians continued the evolution of mathematics started by the ancient Egyptians. Similar to the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians used mathematics in solving daily problems but they were now taught in schools as evidenced in their tablets. The students were taught in solving equations and became the foundation of teaching classroom mathematics. I also got to see how writing of the numerals in a clay tablet. Also, the Babylonian base 60 system became the pillar of way of telling the time in present times. Interesting part in their culture is that they find ways of having fun. They used mathematics in board games such as backgammon.

          After the downfall of the Mesopotamia, mathematics was brought to Europe through Greece. The Greeks applied mathematics to shapes, becoming one of the pioneers of Geometry and Trigonometry. Some prominent mathematicians such as Archimedes, Plato, Euclid, and Pythagoras came in the Greek empire. Pythagoras was able to elaborate that four right triangles would form a square.

          Overall production of the documentary was marvelous and the visual effects were cool. The historical background/research was well delivered and understood through its creative elaboration.  I would like to suggest that the documentary must have some subtitles because I had difficulty in understanding what the host was conveying due to his peculiar British accent.

          The three ancient civilizations have used mathematics for practicality. They have molded the future of mathematics. It was then incorporated in agriculture, architecture, arts, commerce and law. The movie gave me a bigger perspective of the field. It is an eye-opener and made me appreciate history more. I am looking forward in the coming weeks to see more bits of the wonders of the ancient world accompanied with mathematics.