The Problems That Made Modern Math

Problem solving is what makes mathematics exciting (I can’t believe I’m saying this).Even problem solving is one of most crucial and difficult part; this is the part where it is similar to science. Without problems formulated by popular mathematicians, there will be no advance concepts that comprise the modern mathematics. In the final episode of the story of maths, it discussed about the problems that had been unsolved for many years and about the mathematicians who tried and succeed solved it.

Hilbert’s first problem was the first to discuss. It is the continuum hypothesis that George Cantor tried to solve. It discussed about the concept of infinity that there different infinities. He related that whole number and fractions have each their own kind of infinity. The concept is very hard but I admire Cantor how he tried to explain infinity to the world.

Henri Poincare work on the concept of Bendy geometry. The interesting part is how he tries to solved this concept and accidentally discovered the chaos theory. This chaos theory became the basis of the machines used nowadays.

The next important person is Kurt Godel where he formulated the Incompleteness Theorem while studying the Hilbert’s second problem. This theorem disagrees with David Hilbert’s belief that mathematics can discover the all the truths about in the universe.

Paul Cohen studied some of Hilbert’s problems. He revised the first problem or the Continuum hypothesis. A field of study that help in solving many difficult mathematical equations was developed. This field of study is known as the algebraic geometry.  The algebraic geometry was formulated by Andre Weil.

With out these people and these problems, modern mathematics will be like insignificant. Honestly, in this episode, I am not that interested like the other episodes because it discussed about higher mathematics that I cannot really appreciate. I like the concept of infinity even I really did not understand. I appreciate how Marcus discussed the work and discoveries of these mathematicians but there are part of the documentary that is dull to me. I am like looking for dirt in a white plain t-shirt.  In the end, I realized that it might be the final episode of the documentary series but as long as there are problems remained unsolved, the final chapter of the story of maths is not written yet.