Inconsistency Brought by History

A reaction paper on the documentary film; Story of Maths- Part 2

Mathematics involves continuous arguments. Who discovered it first? Where and how? These are typical questions that even when the past is traced, would still be difficult to answer.

Simple arithmetic was a problem back then. That is why nations rapidly thought of ways to pull off their curiosities and to satisfy their thirst for answers. China for example is a country that is rich in culture. In their everyday living math is applied; from using money, to tracking dates by having a calendar, using scales that made a breakthrough in weighing and even for fun. The Chinese are amazing people. Discovering the magic square was no joke, their number system was a proof of number evolution. The emperor having a schedule was a proof of being systematic. But the most innovative work of these Asians was the Great Wall of China. Symmetry and mathematics were applied in structural engineering. South from China is India, known for having commercial and cultural wealth due to its long history had a very important contribution in the present’s numerical system which is hindu-arabic. Because of religion, Hindus wanted to represent nothingness which is the ultimate goal of humanity in Hinduism to achieve immortality. Speaking of which, these brilliant people discovered infinity through dividing one by zero. I admire these people for bringing up the concept of debts. It was an advancement in mathematics; the negative numbers. Not only that, an Indian was the first to calculate the exact number of pi by moving forwards and backwards in fractions. The transformation of geometry to numbers and vice versa is the birth of trigonometry. Indian’s have used it over the years in order to study space. We owe today’s innovation from the early Asians.

The Islamic empire is curious about mathematics. Again, it was religion that kept them seeking for knowledge. These people with a colourful culture are in search for geometric patterns for explanation and guidance. Artists in this empire are the best in symmetry, all sorts of shapes in different orientations. Al-Khwarizmi is a very bright man; he’s a Persian scholar that took an idea from Hindu’s numerical system to form the world’s current number system which is Hindu-Arabic. He also made way to the discovery of algebra, a concrete language. Applying it forming the quadratic equation was a huge step in mathematics.

As a biology student, I can apply Fibonachi’s numbers in many aspects concerning life in nature. Indeed Italians are good at patterns. After the discovery of quadratic equation, there was a method discovered in Bologna to solve all cubic equations. Math is a weapon.

It has always been men’s goal is to make sense of the impossible ∞