After the rise
of Middle East Mathematics, Europe has taken over the baton and it was
considered as the birthplace of great mathematicians who generated new mathematical
ideas that zoomed our vision towards the world. And this is what the third
episode is all about.—The Frontiers of
Space.
Marcus
du Sautoy first visited the masterpieces of arts and maths of Piero della
Francesca in France who was the first major painter to understand the concept
of perspective and represented the 3-Dimensional world in a 2-Dimensional
surface through his work on the Flagellation
of Christ which is pretty impressive.
And then, he went to look for the works of Rene Descartes who build
philosophy in an indisputable world of mathematics and links the connection of
algebra and geometry. I remembered the time when I took these two subjects
concurrently and I really saw the relationships that associate these two
together. I also like the part when he said that to learn is to remove all the
distractions in order to float off into the world of shapes and patterns. I was
just amazed because even in his sleeping hours, he never stop to think about
math. How brilliant is he then? Moving on, Marcus scrutinized the contribution
of Pierre Fermat who virtually invented the modern number theory and is best
known for his Last Theorem. I could
never imagine that his work is a practical application of a system of codes in
order to protect our credit cards. Indeed, these numbers are really functional!
He then moved to Britain and analyzed Newton’s development of calculus who was
remembered by most people in his contribution in physics such as gravity rather
than in math. Then he examined the ideas of Carl Friedrich Gauss who is considered as the Prince of
Mathematics. The first time I encountered imaginary numbers was when I was in
high school and I asked myself, “Do imaginary numbers even make sense?” I mean,
I was just solving problems involving “i” without fully comprehending what it
means and its significance to the society not until I saw the movie. I was
surprised by the fact that imaginary numbers help us understand the concept of
radiowaves to build bridges and airplanes which is also the key to quantum
physics in order to see how things really are.
Other
mathematicians also made significant contributions such as Bolyai in his
hyperbolic geometry which I thought impossible to solve because we are already
used to live in space which appears to be straight and flat. Another one was Bernhard Riemann who made math a means
of his security. He tackled on the foundation of geometry and its relationship
to the world leading to a higher dimensional geometry.
I was really startled by the fact that their discoveries and
inventions led to the advancements of our technologies. I thought that these
were never connected with one another and I was proven wrong. The simplicity or
complexity of mathematics has something to do in the development of our
society.
As an IT student I agree that mathematics plays a big part in technological development. Even in the field of programming numbers, variables do exist. Mathematics for me has something to do in our daily lives. It's an eye opener to everyone. Glad to read this article. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with what the author has stated. Its just that we are learning from the simple mechanisms to procreate complex ideas and innovations through the application of mathematical knowledge. Like education, knowing mathematics is a never-ending process and so with the process of learning :)
ReplyDeleteYou see, the guys you've mentioned above are not only brilliant but they are determined as well. Determined to the point that even in their sleep they still try to figure things out that piqued their curiosity in the field of Mathematics. And that field is interminable as well as intricate like a labyrinth. Great job author, glad to have stumbled upon on this article. :)
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