Powerhouse Cast for A Power

The third installment of The Story of Maths presents the prowess of Math in the 16^th and 17^th centuries mostly. With names of great mathematicians that ring a bell to us such as Descartes and Newton, Europe indeed can be considered a mathematical powerhouse at those times, making even more enormous leaps to the ‘language’  that we have now.

On a more personal level though, I found the movie both interesting and tedious. The movie can be quite a sleep inducer with its scholarly way of sharing all that bundle of knowledge but ironically, parts of it are quite refreshing in my opinion specifically, those which included the lesser known math geniuses (to me) dela Fransesca, Leibniz and most especially Fermat.

Marcus de Sautoy first travels to Italy where he presented the work of Pierro dela Fransesca. Here he expresses dela Fransesca’s genius in the painting The Flagellation of Christ. The use of perspective in presenting the 3D world on a 2D campus was introduced. Since dela Fransesca was both a painter and mathematician, he was able to understand this well and use math to get a sense of depth, reflecting his knowledge on his work.

Oui.

Sautoy then ventures to France to feature the mathematical giant Rene Descartes, whose name everyone who experienced Cartesian planes would be familiar with. What we do not necessarily know about the man was what interested me.

One thing we normal beings (haha) share with the great Descartes would be his love for his bed (only pure thoughts allowed though). The man would not get up until 11 am for goodness sake. His greatness shall be my proof that sleep produces the best in us.

Another thing that I like about Descartes was his way of thinking, stating “How can you actually know anything at all?” What I didn’t like was the fact that somehow he was able to arrive to the conclusion to use math as an answer to his philosophical question. So much for philosophy.

Then came Pierre de Fermat. Although an amateur, this person was said to rival Descartes as the greatest mathematician of all time. His contribution was surpassed by even more geniuses though. Regardless, this person really inspired me after watching the quick minutes of his airtime. He discovered the modern number theory and other theorems but it was his passion for uncovering new numerical patterns that I like about him the most.

“Any prime number divided by four which leaves a remainder of one can be rewritten as two square numbers added together.” Indeed when I tried it out, the pattern did fit pieces together and I found that 'joy of discovery' I so rarely feel in dealing with numbers.

‘Ol Chaps, the man who popularized the apple like no other would be next in line.

Sir Isaac Newton’s contributions were uncovered as Mr. Sautoy goes to Great Britain. Here, mathematics was boosted as the emerging world power required new methods in measurement and computation in their conquest for expansion and greater ambitions for power.

I just have to say this for my own state of being : I want one of those Newton cups!

Anyway, although Newton is more popular for being the ‘Lord’ of Gravity and Motion, he also contributed a great deal to the revolution in mathematics – the Calculus. While Sautoy was explaining speed c, distance d, and all that jazz, did I forget to mention he was driving a Volvo?

Stupid shiny silver Volvo owner. (No bashers allowed please. Yes, I’m a Twihard.)

Newton was more interested in other fields of study though such as theology and alchemy and he considered mathematics as one of his past time loves only so he did not really publish his ideas. He did not really care.

Hallo Atze.

That is, until Gottfried Leibniz came along. In my opinion, Leibniz is one of those brilliant people who were not given enough recognition for their work so I kind of admire the dude of feel a teeny bit sorry for him. It turns out that he also unearthed the calculus and his ideas were all kept in records. After hearing of his rival though, Isaac Newton kind of felt the need to be acknowledged of his discovery and it was indeed him who got all the praise since he was the first to discover about it.

After the first half of the movie, several other great names and their contributions were tackled such as the Swedish Bernoullis. Sadly, this was the time when I started to snooze off and I was not able to get my focus back for the rest of the movie. Too much info for me to bear for the day I guess.

Chal-ga.