The legacy Continues

The Legacy Continues

                Here we are the fourth and last instalment of The Story of Maths. It has been amazing journeying with Professor Du Sautoy. It seems like I was able to travel with him as well. Also, my appreciation and understanding towards Math went another level. I actually did not expect that I would become interested in Math. Well, in the last instalment it took us to infinity and beyond. At first, I thought that it was entitled that way because it started its presentation with the concept of Infinity by Georg Cantor and I suspect the “beyond” would refer to all other concepts and ideas of other Mathematician. Well, we could have different understanding and presumption about how they arrived at that title.

                As the documentary went on more Mathematical hypothesis and theorems were mentioned. The documentary was a mix of past and modern mathematician. The old mathematicians like David Hilbert established 23 problems for which future mathematicians can solve (or just try to solve!) When Hilbert established the 2 problems he said “We must know, we will know”. From that, we can say that he made those problems because he knew that someday someone can find solutions to those problems if that person believes that he would know the answer. However, Austrian mathematician Kurt Godel somewhat destroyed Hilbert’s math by proposing the Incomplete Theorem. In his theorem, he said that a mathematical concept could be true but it cannot be solved.

                If I am not mistaken, it was only in this instalment that Mathematics went to America. Although this time mathematics went to America, the people behind this development were not all Americans; they could be from exile or purely foreign students who went to America. Nevertheless, it was also amazing at that time because female mathematicians were starting to make their own name. Female mathematicians like Sophia Covaleskia and Julia Robinson made their mark. Covaleskia became the first female professor of mathematics at Stockholm. On the other hand, Robinson became the first female mathematician elected as president of American mathematical Society. He also tried to find the solution to Hilbert’s 10^th problem. Hilbert’s 10^th problem is: If there could be a universal method that could somehow tell whether any equation could have a whole number solution or not. Robinson tried to solve it. At the end she established the Robinson Theory answering the 10^th problem. It says that no such method exists because for one equation the solution is a specific set of numbers. At the end, she failed because she was not able to find that set of numbers.

                In this modern time, some of the 23 problem established by Hilbert were answered over the years while some remain unsolved. A realization came to me. The title Infinity and Beyond does not refer to the documentary alone. On a broader concept the title refers to Mathematics as a never ending journey of learning. That the study of mathematics will not stop as long as there are brilliant minds who are interested in solving patterns and studying structures. The mathematics that we have now will continue and will not end. It will just continue to prosper and develop just like what happened from the very first mathematics up to now.