European Math Daddies

We continued our journey throughout the history of math, and the first part was during the Renaissance period. My favorite part was about the famous painter, Pierro, because he was the first painter to understand perspective. I love drawing, but I cannot seem to get perspective correctly. I still remember the life size painting of Jesus, and it really did seem as if he were in the picture as well. It was cool that he used math to understand perspective, and this made me appreciate math more because I could also use it to perfect drawing perspective.

            From Italy we went to France, to the home of René Descartes, the one and only creator of the Cartesian plane. He even had his own fan club. I remember the narrator going into a museum that was all about him. He fought alongside the protestant and catholic army. It’s hard to imagine him being a killer mathematician. He was able to contribute to math by introducing the Cartesian plane, where for every x value, there is a y value, and there are various geometric shapes that can be formed using the Cartesian plane, like circles, ellipses, arches and a lot more.

The next chapter involved Isaac Newton, who is known for discovering and analyzing gravity. There was this town in England that honored him so much that they named a supermarket after him. I loved how the narrator held an apple in his hand most of the time during his discussion. It was his stepfather that encouraged him to pursue math, and he hated him for it. Apparently, Newton was also a fanatic of math that he was able to create calculus due to problems he found hard to solve.

But Newton actually founded calculus at the somewhat the same time with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz of Germany. They founded differential calculus separately, people were confused as to who really did invent calculus. Turns out, Newton first discovered the concept, but Leibniz was the one who first published his papers on calculus. In the end, the royal society rooted for Newton, leaving Leibniz disappointed. However, the calculus used nowadays is the calculus formulated by Leibniz, because his was easier to understand. The narrator also had a bias for Leibniz, and he went on to discover more about his life. Leibniz even had his own library, and the books there were handwritten by him. The narrator also showed us several machines made by him that was used as a calculator, like that one calculator that works using the binary system. It also used ball bearings, and it was very entertaining for a calculator. I cannot imagine having to bring something like that during an exam.

He next followed a family of Swiss mathematicians, the Bernoulli’s. It was quite entertaining to think of a family that loved math so much. It will never happen to my family though. The Bernoulli brothers backed up with Leibniz on his version of calculus, and even they were able to contribute a lot to the new field. They were able to make calculus what it is today, thanks to how they supported Leibniz. The narrator was even able to have dinner with a descendant of the Bernoulli brothers. Even though he was from the mathematical family, he really wasn’t into math.

I also liked the part about Euler, one of the prodigies of Johann Bernoulli. He transferred to Russia because he felt that he needed to expand his learning in the country. He was the one who made the Euler’s number, which is very important for natural logarithm. I loved how the narrator demonstrated one of Euler’s solved problems using vodka.

The one part of Karl Gauss astonished me though. I mean, who would expect that the prince of mathematics would barely be known, even in his own homeland? What I learned about him is that he was a prodigy, discovering a lot of new things about math before he even turned 20. I’m almost 20 and I didn’t even discover anything. I was also able to know a little about Bolyai, who I heard for the first time, and his cool triangle with angles less than 180 degrees.

All in all, I think people were more focused in this chapter, and pretty much it was the European mathematician that stood in the spotlight. It’s really amazing that these people are really addicted to math, because I cannot see myself in their shoes. They have built foundations of math for us to lean on, making stuff easier for us now. It was quite awesome to learn more about the radical fathers of mathematics.