Production team
Mathematics is the Empress of the Sciences. Without her, there would be no physics, nor chemistry, nor cosmology. Any field of study depending on statistics, geometry, or any kind of calculation would simply cease to be. And then, there are the practical applications: without maths there’s no architecture. No commerce. No accurate maps, or time-keeping: therefore no navigation, nor aviation, nor astronomy.
She is all-powerful: and she rules ruthlessly. Imperious and unyielding, mathematics brooks no dissent and tolerates no error. In an age of uncertainty, mathematics is the only discipline that generates knowledge that’s immutably, incontestably, and eternally true.
In this landmark series of films for BBC FOUR, Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, escorts viewers through the history of this most important of all intellectual disciplines. In a journey that takes him through the ages and around the world, he examines the development of key mathematical ideas and shows how, in a multitude of surprising ways, mathematical ideas underpin the science, technology, and culture that shape our world.
As Marcus shows, mathematics was part of the bedrock of intellectual life in the world’s great civilisations. It was central to the survival of some of the world’s most powerful empires. And even today, mathematical knowledge remains the motor-force that drives the modern world.
The films in this ambitious series offer clear, accessible explanations of important mathematical ideas but are also packed with engaging anecdotes, fascinating biographical details, and pivotal episodes in the lives of the great mathematicians. Engaging, enlightening and entertaining, the series gives viewers new and often surprising insights into the central importance of mathematics, establishing this discipline to be one of humanity’s greatest cultural achievements.
The Story of Maths in more depth:
OU on the BBC: The Story of Maths - To Infinity and Beyond
BBC
Unsolved problems - and the search for solutions - will take maths to infinity and beyond. Marcus du Sautoy explains how. Read more : OU on the BBC: The Story of Maths - To Infinity and Beyond
OU on the BBC: The Story of Maths - The Frontiers of Space
BBC
By the seventeenth century Europe had taken over from the Middle East as the world’s power house of mathematical ideas, the beginning of the Golden... Read more : OU on the BBC: The Story of Maths - The Frontiers of Space
OU on the BBC: The Story of Maths - The Genius of the East
Production team
When ancient Greece fell into decline, mathematical progress became the preserve of the genius of the East. Read more : OU on the BBC: The Story of Maths - The Genius of the East
OU on the BBC: The Story of Maths - The Language of the Universe
OU
It's numbers, not words, which make up the language of the universe. Read more : OU on the BBC: The Story of Maths - The Language of the Universe
![Polling Station signage [Image: kagey b under CC-BY-NC-ND licence]](/openlearn/files/ole/ole_images/places/general-urban-scenes/polling-station-sign/polling station sign_0_0.jpg)
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subtitles...
Hello !
Have you subtitles in French about the series "The Story of Maths" ?
I'll be happy if it's possible to have these subtitles in format SRT.
Thanks.
Francis DRAPIER
www.drapier.eu
Hi Francis, Many thanks for
Hi Francis,
Many thanks for your comment, I'm not aware of the series being available with French subtitles , however if you contact the BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback they will be able to supply you with the answer.
Thanks again.
OpenLean Moderator
Comments on: "About the series"
Lauren Smith has started a thread discussing About the series.
I have a question about the music in the programme. One piece of music in particular. It starts about 27 minutes into the programme, where the presenter is in India explaining about quadratic equations. Its a kind of Indian version of Jazz/Swing music.
Anybody have any idea what it is?
Many thanks for any assistance.
Concerning the comment by "bibiya", I too noted the reference to the muslims having destroyed the library of Alexandria, and think this incorrect and a slur on muslims. In his book "The Pagan Christ", Prof. Tom Harpur gives, I believe, the correct history. He says the library was parlty burnt by Caesar in 47 B.C., but the main destruction was by Christians in 400 and 415 AD. Most of the books were burnt in the first attack, and in the second attack, according to Harpur, all that remained of the library, museum and temple was left in smoking ruins. The same Christian mob which did this second attack was responsible for the murder of the scholar Hypatia, mentioned by Prof. du Sautoy. This was of course long before the world had any muslims.
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
I noticed when I read the Koran that it has stuff about Jesus in it describing himself and his followers as Muslims.
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
Is our dictionary definition of Muslim in error?
Sincerely,
William McCormick
Hi
I have just seen the third part of The Story of Maths and about ten minutes from the beginning Mr Marcus du Sautoy explained something in a huge cathedral as church-music was playing. Very short. Very intense. Monks singing. Please, someone, tell me: What was it?
the zero was first used as a number in the arabic world, not in india, and it was "Jaber Bn hayan" who created "aljebra" which is derived from his name
so please be fair
i found the statement by Marcus du Sautoy in the first episode about the library of alexandria "being destroyed with the advent of the muslims" either a complete deliberate distortion of history or utter ignorance of real history both of which undermine the integrity of the program. for the records it was the romans who burnt down the library when they conquered egypt and defeated the greeks
The programme Story of Maths is excellent and it is vindication to the basic maths as well as concepts of higher mathemetcs. i and my both children Vidya,& Sai are delighted. thanking BBC for producing such high quality educational programmes. kindly repeat the programme for our friends who missed it. we are continuosly watch BBC for world politics and world economics. we are thanking BBC for producing previous programmes like, History of Briton, Life in the under growth.
Hi there. I have seen the 1st part of "the story of math" today (at least i think it was the first - from the Egypts to the Greeks) and would like to know where i can look when the others will be sent on BBC World.
Can anyone tell me where to look that up?
I looked onto these 4 hours journey. I think it is better called Tours around the cities of famous old mathematicians. Instead showing the works of those maths pioneers, it shows Prof. Marcus Face, drinking, and walking. It is not useful in any way presented. It is not necessary to rember their cities, but their works. Those peoples were messengers of Maths, since all scieces are from God, will be given to those making special and extensive sfforts in the subjects.
Any way name it Tours of MArcus around cities of old mathematicians.
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
I think that a peer review by one of his History of Mathematics colleagues would have been a good idea .... I'm thinking of his piece on Tartaglia since Scipione del Ferro is generally credited with being the first to solve cubics. What is really interesting about this ..... is why neither of them wanted to publish the achievement in the first place.
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
The problem with peer review is that the individuals of earth are very weak minded. Extremely weak minded.
If they find something different and they were not right about what they thought was true, they don't want it. And if they are amongst the majority that think that way. We may not be able to fix it. Many would rather go on wrong, then face they are wrong.
I learned math totally differently then others. I learned the order of math as addition subtraction multiplication and division. I learned that there was an "x" and an "X" symbol both having two meanings.
I learned the "/" symbol as a fraction symbol that took the number just to the left and divided it by the number, just to the right.
I learned the "÷" symbol as the in line symbol for taking everything to the left and dividing it by everything to the right.
It was one of the most advanced and fastest coding systems for in line processing. In a computer. No parenthesis were needed with this system.
I was a mathematician in the fifth grade, and they bought a main frame computer for the school. But just myself and one other girl at the time was using it. But the computer people forgot to put the "÷" symbol on the keyboard.
They did not even know math basics.
Sincerely,
William McCormick
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
This might be interesting as to how different places teach different things.
I had learned parenthesis as a way to do, in line calculations on paper with a pencil. We would put parenthesis around the different parts of the in line formula. So that while calculating by hand, I would not confuse or over look something. We would put the answer to the formula within the hand written parenthesis above the parenthesis and then total up the whole formula.
But basically parenthesis were for your own notation. A quick way to make the formula less mistakable, especially during mathematician contests. You would not want them, or use them unless you were using a pencil and paper.
Sincerely,
William McCormick
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
or any other human
when struggling with excel
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
How do you like entering 8+7 divided by three?
That is not how I think. I use Cadd a lot and I find that entering in measurements that I wish to divide is like a nightmare. No one thinks in reverse to appease a computer naturally. I don't think, "parenthesis 8 plus 7 parenthesis divide by three". Or at least I did not. Ha-ha.
Sincerely,
William McCormick
Is there going to be a book about the series? I note that there are courses, but for people living outside the UK, they are prohibitively expensive. Also, I like books, which I can go through at my own speed.
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
I studied history of maths ( one year course) and this series are just Tours of Marcus around cities of messengers of Maths. Just showing most he is drinking and waliking and a little about the work of those Messengers of Maths.
Useless series and waste of Money.
And then I saw the post with this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
Heehee!
RE:
"I enjoyed this but got really irritated by the statement that an irrational number is one where the decimals never end... ... they go on for ever. Well that is just plain wrong; it makes a third an irrational number. Now I understand that the BBC might not understand the difference, but how does the OU let a statement like that be made?"
I'm pretty sure the narrator further explained that the never ending decimals of irrational numbers were non-recurring - the key difference between them and fractions such as one third, one ninth, two-thirds etc. And even if he hadn't it certainly does not make the statement "just plain wrong", merely incomplete.
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
Where does Burrow Mump on the Somerset levels which sits on the latitude cosine 0.2 pi when Pi equals 3.1104/.99 and Norwich casle mound sitting on latitude 52 + 0.2 Pi° when Pi = 22/7 come into the storey?
Brian
P.S:- (3.1104/0.99) / (55² -1 x 55²) = 22/7
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
Really enjoyed the series.
Is it available for download or on DVD outside of the Open University course for further viewing?
This programme is a must see for all teachers of maths. I haven't felt so inspired in a long time. I can't wait to see the next series.
Top job to Marcus!
Can I download and use this programme?
Maths very good, but tends to be skimpy, instance measuring distance of the moon and sun. how did they measure 1/7 of a degree to determine a 400 to 1 ratio?. These type statements leave you high and dry
"I enjoyed this but got really irritated by the statement that an irrational number is one where the decimals never end... ... they go on for ever. Well that is just plain wrong; it makes a third an irrational number. (...)"
Read the statement exactly and check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
I'm sorry, I hate logical errors.
Yes, the researchers of the film are right, al-KhawÄrazmÄ« was Persian from Uzbekistan. He says so himself in some of his texts. He belonged to a group/movement of Persian intellectuals in early 'Abbasid society known then in Arabic as the Mawali (clients). They were mostly poets, mathematicians, philologists, grammarians, philosophers, scholars of the Qur'an and Hadith, etc.
Marcus, thumbs up - very entertaining series, what an enjoyable piece of work to watch, great video passage too.
But, there is one thing that i did not agree with - as a Kwarazmy myself (I assume you know what that means - Khwarazmy - Horazmiy - a person born in/from Khorezm in Uzbekistan. ) I did not like him being called a Persian - in any sense of imagination can that be true. Please carry out your research thoroughly for every little thing before broadcasting a programme. its like calling Shakespeare French.
If you are interested - contact me I can provide you with any material you want to prove that he is Uzbek/Turkic.
Other than that cracking masterpiece you had prepared.
I enjoyed this but got really irritated by the statement that an irrational number is one where the decimals never end... ... they go on for ever. Well that is just plain wrong; it makes a third an irrational number.
Now I understand that the BBC might not understand the difference, but how does the OU let a statement like that be made?
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
yes almost all real numbers are irrational-Cantor
A brilliant programme. What a wonderful resourse for my maths L5 teacher training course. Guess what this week's session is about!
Perfect timing for my history of numbers!
I look forward to next week's programme.
Slightly confused as it is billed on the open2.net as 3.30 Tues but can't locate it!
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
Agreed - Marcus du Sautoy is becoming a populariser par excellence
I'm looking forward to his review of 20th century maths - will he favour Bourbaki 'Death to triangles!' or Coxeter's grounding of abstract geometry in the concrete stuff?
First programme excellent; invites further study: some examples of proofs and so on, whizzed through and not easy to grasp.
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
It's not clear who this series is aimed at ... some concepts are quickly covered (the place value of the 60 number base system is not explained) whilst more straightforward concepts (the factors of 60 shown visually with beans) are given more explanation. Is it meant to explain mathematical ideas or only to give an historical overview of the major developments in mathematical thinking?
Re: Comments on: "About the series"
I agree although I've only seen Prog 1. Is there some evidence of dumbing-down / glossing-over here?
I am grateful for the effort to bring Maths to everyone in an exciting way but who is it aimed at AND where is the substance? I still don't understand how Marcus multiplied 6 & 3 together using counters but felt that I had to take it for granted or I'd miss the next bit. The cinnamon sticks weighing seemed to be a problem for the sake of it, that was suggested to be clever but why and how? The explanation about 54 egyptian hieroglyphs to show a large number was laboured although nicely graphic. One last example, why did Marcus dwell on Hypatia's death (stating it overshadowed her work), admittedly carefully avoiding its gruesomeness yet failing to show why she was notable, himself.
I like to see problem/background - solution/merit format with a dose of how I could use it or do it.
Despite these criticisms a very good attempt at exciting the number juices - thank you.
Absolutely fantastic start to the series. I am intending to use this in my classes at school to inspire the pupils to love maths as much as I do!
So exciting to see maths given the treatment it deserves. Brilliant!
Emma