The Journey to the Center of Maths: 50,000 Years under the Past

        When we watched the film “The Story of Maths,” an ancient question buried deep in my graveyard of memories sprang back to life once again as it would do whenever I got cornered by a mathematical dilemma and a groan of frustration starts rising up in my throat-who [the heck] invented mathematics? It seemed that the host, Marcus du Sautoy, had heard my question. And so he took us back in time, back to where everything began with math.

        It was ingenious of the Egyptians to seek for the number of days in between the periodic flooding of Nile so that they can take preventive measures on crops and livestock damage. Then they developed a crude system for measuring using their body parts, like a hand or an elbow. As for their counting system, the Egyptians developed the decimal system and used hieroglyphs to represent values which, I think, were very odd. I mean using staffs to represent the values one to nine were reasonable, but to represent one million with an astonished man? Well I’d be astonished myself if I got hold of a sum that huge. I highly agree with du Sautoy’s statement that the Egyptians were brilliant innovators and mathematicians. Having approximated the value of pi and discovering the golden ratio during their time was a marvel of mathematical ingenuity by the Egyptians. But the greatest feat that these people have ever achieved was their proudest icon-the Great Pyramids of Giza. I had wondered how such a civilization had eloquence in geometry and infrastructure. Though I didn’t fully understand du Sautoy’s explanation, I was still amazed that Egyptian mathematicians had created such concepts on geometry that, as based on a papyrus record about Egyptian mathematics, they even had the basic concept of right angled triangles before Pythagoras did, though it was not that emphasized.

        It was true that we know more about Babylonian mathematics than those of the Egyptians, but the sources about our knowledge on them had caught me off-guard. Unlike the former, whose principles and concepts were official records, most of the Babylonian mathematics was discovered as “schoolwork” from children. I was impressed by their crude way of using fingers to count, the way they approached and solved practical problems using mathematics, and even more on their development on the idea of zero, though there was no concrete symbol of it at that time. But the development of the base 60 system was the most interesting part, especially its main purpose- to chart the course of the night sky. Quadratic equations, one of the greatest legacies of Babylonian mathematics, was developed for very useful and practical purposes too, like problems about land ownership and area determination were solved using these concepts they even developed a game from it . Well, I’ve never been that fond of mathematics to the point of making a game but I had come to admire their intellectual “guts” for it.

        I was, and still am, interested with Greek gods and goddesses and their history in the once pagan world of Greece. But I never thought I’d be interested in their history in mathematics. Since it is required in our subject, let’s pretend that I am interested in some sort (just kidding, I’m interested. Really.) Sometime during our high school geometry we encountered the concepts of proving, which nearly made me want to sit idle for the whole day and mourn for my inability to grasp its ideas. Now that the film showed me where it had originated, at least I can appreciate its history. “Proving is what gave mathematics its strength,” as what du Sautoy said, and I totally agree with that. Their concept of making logical and analytical deductions is what gave Greek mathematics its authenticity throughout time, and made Sherlock Holmes an epic detective. But what put Greece into fame and recognition in the world of mathematics was attributed to one man-Pythagoras. He made the bridge between abstract counting systems and concrete geometrical shapes through his obra maestra, the Pythagorean Theorem. But as interesting as this theorem may be, I have the same opinion on what du Sautoy said about Pythagoras’ theory on music and harmonic series. Being fond of music, I certainly envy his understanding of the series. If only I could learn it somehow. Anyway, Plato believed mathematics to be the foundation of knowledge and I don’t know how he had come to conclude that. I’m pretty sure that if he'd personally explain them to me, my brain cells would undergo apoptosis before I’d understand him.

        I’m sure if Archimides had seen today’s arsenals of war, he’d be in euphoria. Being a specialist in instruments of mass destruction, he used geometry to devise weapons ranging from catapults to prototype “prism cannons” that harness sunlight. Besides that, his superiority in calculating the volume of solid objects resulted to the birth of more shapes and estimated the value of pi. So great was his dedication for mathematics that he ignored his own safety and was killed by a Roman soldier. His untimely plight told me the lesson that too much is too dangerous. Then, with the waning of the Greek Empire, the last stand for the heritage of Greek mathematics was Hypatia. Her efforts to preserve it until her ill-fated death were not in vain.

        The essence of mathematics is like the directions in the real number line system-it extends back from the past and continues to the present and the future. It was, is and will be never ending. I have come to admire math in its history and innovation from the three civilizations that we had discussed. But what we were shown was just the start of the beginning.