Retracing The Steps Back Into The Past

The first part of the documentary series The Story of Maths was entitled, "The Language of The Universe," and it was hosted by a mathematician named Marcus du Sautoy.

At first, I was really intrigued by the title of the documentary. 'If it is a language, how can someone communicate using it?,' I thought, but later on realized that I was being too literal so I doubted if this was really the question the documentary will try to focus on or something a lot deeper. Either way, I needed to know what it really was about.

The host took us back to the early times of the three different civilizations namely, Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece.

Our first stop was Ancient Egypt. What's really striking about their time was their dependence on the flooding of the River Nile as a marker to start another year. They expected it to flood each year to help them in growing their crops. I was really amazed that they really trusted that cycle. But questions like 'Was the flooding of the Nile consistent each year with regards to the date and time?' and 'If this cycle was not used and trusted, what would be their possible means of marking another year?' lingers in my mind.

I saw that the Egyptians were really dedicated as they also created the first numbers in history. Though they only made use of strokes to represent small numbers, they were pretty creative when it came to representing the larger numbers - making use of symbols like lotus, frog, finger and god with arms raised like also representing their civilization.

The host also introduced the Rhine and Moscow Mathematical Papyrus that showed proofs of early fascination in Mathematics in Ancient Egypt. These relics must mean so much to the people of Egypt as it paved the way for further discoveries and improvements in the field of Mathematics.

I believe Mathematics emerged because there was a really great need to make sense of quantities, problems and forms in their everyday life. They even started measuring things by using their body. If we were in their position a long time ago, we'd probably do the same thing they did just to have an idea on how to deal with things that we'd encounter in our daily activities.

Once the pyramids were shown, I thought of how lucky the host was to have had the opportunity to see it face-to-face. I wondered how someone could have planned to create this solid work. The geometrical proportions are just so astounding. I appreciated it even more by just thinking about how much time it took for it to be finished, following very intimate details to create such masterpiece.

On to our second stop, Mesopotamia. The Babylonians also felt the need to use something to help them in their everyday life. One problem was they needed to find a way to measure their land before they can start to plant and that was the start of the creation of the quadratic formula. Like the Egyptians, the Babylonians also have their Plimpton 322, which showed early mathematical problems and solutions. I also learned that it was because of them that we had 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour, following the Base 60 System. I was in awe of their enthusiasm about Math. They even spent their leisure time playing backgammon - a board game that involves outwitting the opponent using Tactical Mathematics.

Last stop was Ancient Greece. It was just so evident how the Greeks were influenced by Geometry, building their structures with great geometric precision.

Plato, Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes were featured - they are famous for their works and principles that opened the doors for more improvements and achievements in the field of Mathematics. I was also amazed with the story of Archimedes - even before he died, he was so devoted to Mathematics. I still can't believe that there was someone who had that much devotion in this field.

I've never really put much thought into how and where Mathematics really started. Well, for one, I'm not interested about the subject, and whenever those questions would randomly pop in my mind, I'd easily dismiss it and tell myself there's no point in knowing it because I'm not gonna use that information anyway... until now.

I was so fulfilled by the end of the journey of the three civilizations. I appreciated Mathematics more and I understood the need to learn it. I also got the answer to my question. Mathematics is the language of the universe because it connects people more than words can. When different people from different parts of the world meet, each of them may have the difficulty to speak in the same language as the others but Math will always connect them. In short, the value of Pi will always be the same no matter where you are.

I also think that Mathematics was already a natural part of being human even before it was innovated and improved. It just took the right timing, increasing need and deep understanding to create a spark in humans for it to be born.