Behind the Scenes

              In the first two parts of the Story of Maths, it showed the history, theorems and proofs of the mathematics. This time, the Frontiers of Space focused on the people behind every mathematical discovery that is very useful in our present generation and even in the future.

                The presenter, Marcus du Sautoy, went to the town called Descartes which is obviously named after Rene Descartes who is an outstanding mathematician and a theoretical physicist who realized that it was possible to link algebra and geometry. For me, it's cool to know that Descartes figured out that curve lines can possibly be described as equations. Next, Marcus went to explain Pierre Fermat who discovered the amazing properties of the prime numbers and the modern number theory. Marcus also explained how the theorem of Fermat is now the basis of the codes that are used in the credit cards today. Then, he went to the place where Isaac Newton lived. I was surprised to know that he had a step-father that he really hates but he’s the one who pushed Isaac Newton to pursue his mathematics. Marcus looked at the discovery and the development of calculus which is a very important tool that is used today by every engineer. He then introduced Gottfried Leibniz who was that not so popular mathematician unlike Isaac Newton but he still enjoyed his life because of his mathematical works. Marcus pointed out the calculus controversy between Leibniz and Newton wherein there was an argument over who had first invented calculus. Newton claimed to have begun working on a form of calculus but he did not publish it yet while Leibniz worked on it also but he published his first paper employing the calculus. In the end, Leibniz was accused for plagiarism even if he contributed things more than Newton. That’s just so sad. Then, some people idolized Leibniz and distributed his calculus. Marcus also introduced Leonard Euler and Carl Friedrich Gauss who made the major breakthroughs in our understanding of how the prime numbers are distributed. There was this one statement of Gauss that made me think and realize. It was the “If we are living in a curve universe, wouldn’t be anything flat?”. And this might have led him to discover a lot of things that is useful today.

                Without these people, we would not be progressing today and we would still be very thankful to them even if sometimes we curse them because of creating such difficult to understand mathematical stuffs that make our grades in mathematics terrible (haha).

                I really like the video because it relays a lot of information to people who watch it. I like it also because of the presenter who has a good sense of humor. There are parts in the video that made me and my classmates laugh! It is very entertaining and I swear, you’ll learn a lot!