Love For Mathematics: Gratitude To Its Creators

                Mathematics has been the crux in which the human existence becomes dependent. Measuring the time, the earliest inventions and advanced technologies are all a by-product of the application of mathematics nowadays. One of the souls of mathematics is how to solve equations in which the ancient civilization had discovered as they encountered mathematical problems in their life.

The first installation of the movie entitled “The Story of Math”, journeyed to the culture that the basic development of numbers and calculation was originated. The history of math across Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece was placed in the picture. In the second installation, the story behind the discoveries in the East was disclosed. The subsequent history of mathematics passed along China, India, Islamic Empire, Persia and Italy.

    In China, having one of the famous edifices in the world, The Great Wall of China; was a product of the brilliant idea of mathematics. The wall was mainly for the defense of the Chinese empire. Upon constructing the building they realized that they need to make calculations on the distances, angles and the amount of the materials to be used. Chinese mathematics has a number system almost similar to what we use today, in which they use bamboo rods arranged in columns to represent numbers called the Decimal-Place-Value System. They also have special symbols used in Laborious Method. Their number system didn’t have a representation of zero and zero does not exist as a number hence they leave a space blank. Ancient Chinese believed that numbers has cosmic importance and they believe on the mystical power of numbers. They believed that the number eight brings good fortune and number four must be avoided at all cost.  Odd numbers are represented by male while even numbers correspond to female. Chinese has widened enthrallment on patterns of numbers that they further developed their own early version of Sudoku called Magic Square. Mathematics was also used to run the empire; the emperor used calendar, hired astronauts to observe the movements of the planet that influenced the decision of the emperor. The emperor’s life must be lived with all precision so he employed a mathematical adviser to come up with a system for him to sleep with 121 women at 15 nights. The system became a series of number and gave means to the idea of Geometric Progression. The mathematicians have realized that Geometric Progression was a series of numbers in which you get one number to the next by multiplying the same number all the time. Mathematics was not only essential for running the empire but central in governing the whole state. The ancient China has strict rules in taxation and a standardized system of weights, measures and money, thus they need people who are proficient in mathematics. They used mathematical textbooks to train people and mathematics was included in the curriculum. Chinese had gone solving more complicated problems even dealing with larger numbers, which led them to found out an approach to the numbers that has left after calculation and they called it the Remainder Theorem. The ancient Chinese astronomy used the remainder theorem to measure the planetary movement. And the Chinese remainder theorem is being used at the present in encoding numbers on internet cryptography. At the Golden age of Chinese mathematics there was this most important mathematician named Qin Jiushao that figured out a way of solving cubic equations. The only problem was it only come across an approximate solution to problems; it was then called the Approximate Method.

In India, they had the greatest innovation of all time which is the Indian system of counting numbers including the number zero. They come up with a symbol for the number zero based on their cultural belief and their religion; having the concept of nothingness and eternity. An Indian mathematician proved the properties of zero. Indian also had the notion of negative numbers due to debts. The perception of zero and negative numbers was based on their thought that numbers are abstract entities. In addition they developed quadratic equations having two answers; positive and negative value. Indian mathematicians had contributed the new concepts of infinite and discovered a formula for the approximation of pi. On top of the Indian breakthrough, the fundamental discovery of Indians was the study of right angled triangles or the theory of Trigonometry. They had the function to calculate distance not having the accurate measurement called the Sine Function.

In the Islamic empire, there located the great library called the House of Wisdom. In their religion, they use mathematics to calculate the time for prayer, to know the direction of Mecca where to pray towards and their buildings was covered with geometric patterns. The Islamic empire is famous for their number system called the Hindu-Arabic Numerals which is widely spread and used today all over the world.  A mathematician from the Middle East created the new language behind the pattern underlying the behavior of numbers and the way it works. This was called Algebra.   

In Persia, they had given great contribution on discerning the problems of the cubic. A Persian poet had uncovered a method to solve cubic equation through logical proofs. But the general solution in solving all the problems in cubic equation was acquired in Italy. Western mathematics has a number system called Roman Numerals having symbols to represent the value of a number. In Italy there were a lot of mathematician that had discovered new concepts such as Fibonacci Number System by Leonardo of Pisa and the Cardano’s Formula which was used to solve all types of cubic equation that was beforehand the idea of Tartaglia.

The Eastern part of the world had vast contribution to the unearthing and progress of the modern mathematics today. The problem is the discovery of the genius in the east was not duly recognized until the invention of the west. Some of the mathematicians in the east were not given the recognition and credits to their originality of new theories, ideas and concepts that had changed the mathematical manner of doing things and led to its advancement.

I learned that all the principles of mathematics began with real world application in which the earliest people discovered a means to give answers to problems. From those problems they encounter, they wheedled out common properties and created a universal abstract to objects that revealed an unexpected enormous contribution to the circle of mathematics. But in China, they had given the world a huge gift of mathematical innovation because of their love for numbers and even deriving solution to more complicated problems. Also I come to realize that we should be thankful to all the genius minds of the mathematicians who contributed in discovering all the fields in mathematics for they had given the people today a better world.

Love for mathematics is a love for those who created it. Numbers, time, shapes, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and other topics under mathematics wouldn't be existent without those who discovered it.