GENESIS

“GENESIS”

The Beginning of Mathematics

            The documentary states about the story of mathematics: where it originated; the early ways of counting and solving; and the discoveries by different mathematicians and philosophers. The host visited different countries which are related to the history of mathematics to know their different ways of solving mathematical problems and to know also the different mathematicians who contributed greatly in mathematics.  He traveled through Egypt, Babylon, and Greece.

            In Egypt, recording the patterns of the seasons, especially the flooding of the Nile is very essential to their economy because it can affect them, because it is where they get their foods and their products. They have to trace and solve for the pattern of when the Nile will flood again. They also have to solve practical problems like land areas for taxation reasons. They were the ones who developed the decimal system based on the using of the fingers of the hands. They have also the idea of fractions and solid shapes. Their number system is on the base 10 so it is not that hard for us to study their number system, the hard part for us is to memorize the symbols they were using, and also they don’t have a symbol used to represent for zero.

In an article posted by Jacob Aron, he said that the Egyptians were practical problem solvers, and because of their need for bureaucracy and land management, they were able to develop a counting system. I agree with him in that statement. It is because even the common problems like how to divide nine loaves of bread between 10 people, are being worked out in detail. But he also said that because the Egyptians had never realized the power of a generalized proof, it forced them, instead, to work out with the same problem multiple times, but using different numbers. I also agree with him in this statement because based on what I’ve understood in the documentary, they really did that.

In Babylon, their number system is on base 60 and it is different from our number system, and so it will be difficult for us to study their system because of the difference in our number system, but it will not be that difficult to memorize their symbols because they are using only two figures. The way we read and tell the time today is also based on their number system (we have 60 seconds in one minute; and 60 minutes in one hour). They also used quadratic equations to measure their lands.

In Greece, the host looked and discovered the works and contributions of some of the known mathematicians like Plato, Archimedes and Pythagoras. According to the documentary, Pythagoras was the one who was credited in the start of the transformation of mathematics from a counting tool to an analytical subject that we know today. He also developed an important theory after observing a musical instrument (I think organ or piano. I’m not so sure.), it was when he discovered that the intervals between the musical notes are always in whole numbers. Also, this documentary tells briefly about Hypatia of Alexandria.

            I can say that this documentary is a good way of educating the students about the history of Mathematics: how and where it started; who were the early people that were considered as the greatest mathematicians and contributors of knowledge, the giants in the field of Mathematics; and those who discovered the early methods and tools used in Mathematics.

Well, this documentary changed my perspective about mathematics in a way that I became more interested about the early years of mathematics, about how they survived without the modern gadgets that are used in mathematics today like the calculator and many more.

            I can say that this documentary is good and we can really get knowledge about mathematics, but my concern is about the way of pronouncing of the host, so what I can suggest is that it must have subtitles because though it is spoken in English, it is in British accent and not all of us can understand the way they speak.