Story of Maths 2:Genius of the East

Story of Maths 2

This second installment of the movie was entitled “The Genius of the East”. This explains the concepts of mathematics of the different countries in the east. One country that contributed to the world of mathematics is China. Ancient Chinese first used the decimal-place value system but did not use when writing down numbers. They had a problem writing the concept of zero since they don’t have the symbol for zero. But the absence of zero did not stop the steps of improving math, numbers represent different values or meaning. An example is number 4 that must be avoided and 8 that brings good fortune to people. Another was the introduction of magic squares or also known as Sudoku that came from the turtle back containing numbers that will sum up to 15 in every row, column and diagonal form.

During the ancient time, the emperor of china gave importance to the calendar and the movements of the planets so the emperor hired officials in his palace that were astronomers and they were also mathematicians. His mathematical advisors come up with a system that in 15 days he had to sleep with 121 women this was called as the geometric progression or a series of numbers. After several centuries, Carl Friedrich Gauss became the prince of mathematics because of rediscovering the method or system of solving particular equations. The ancient Chinese lead the discovery of the Chinese remainder theorem and it was used in the calculations of the planetary movement. Another ancient mathematician named Qin Jiushao got interested in solving cubic equations for 3-dimensional shapes and even more complicated equations, and this method was adopted by Isaac Newton with the same approximation. But it was not good enough since mathematics is an exact science, it needed to be precise and Qin cannot create an exact equation to his method.

After China, India discovered the benefits of the decimal place value system. Then India developed the 9 numerals that we are using today; it ranked as one of the greatest intellectual innovations of all time and was called as the universal language. Indians first introduced the existence or the notion of zero to the world and to capture the large number in efficient way using 10-digits from 0 to 9. Zero represents the movement of something from nothing so it symbolizes nothingness and it was said that nothingness is the ultimate goal of humanity. The new Indian mathematical term for zero was called shunya. An Indian mathematician named Brahmagupta proved some of the essential properties of zero, but for Bhaskara, one divided by zero is infinity.

It was also the Indians who introduced to us the concept of negative numbers and the calculations for quadratic equations and Brahmagupta concluded that quadratic equations have 2 solutions; Indians were responsible for discovering the Theory of Trigonometry because it translate geometry to trigonometry and back. When the right-triangles were flourished the trigonometry was used to find the ratios of the hypotenuse from the two other lines and was called as the sine function. Sine functions are used to measure angles accurately, for example, the distance of the sun from the earth was measured using sine function. Madhava, an Indian mathematician, lead to the concept of infinity when the adding many fractions. He used this concept to capture the exact value of Pi because it was said that all sorts of curve will soon require Pi so they search the precise value of it. A mathematicians known as Aryabhata gave the very approximation of Pi and it was discovered by German mathematician Leibniz. After sometime, it already began to spread to the Islamic countries since they use mathematics like geometric patterns to cover their building.

There was this library called the House of Wisdom owned by Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi, a Persian scholar who presented the mathematical concept of Hindu numerals to speed up calculations and became known as the Hindu Arabic numerals. Al-Khwarizmi taught to the world the concept of Algebra from his book “Al-jabr W’al-muqabala” or calculation by restoration and reduction. Algebra shows the patterns and behavior of numbers solving quadratic equations and now the cubic equations. Omar Khayyam was solving for the general solution to the cubic equations, it was then improved in Italy. The mathematician in Italy was Leonardo of Pisa or Fibonacci demonstrated the new number system and made the Fibonacci sequence, when there is growth in nature there is Fibonacci numbers.

The biggest breakthrough was finding the general method that would solve all cubic equations and he was Tartaglia but a young Italian called Fior declared that he also come up with the formula for solving cubic equations so they declared a fencing competition and Tartaglia won since solve different sorts of cubic equations in two hours. While another mathematician named Cardano was very desperate to find the solutions for all cubic equations, he persuaded Tartaglia to reveal the formula in one condition that he would keep the secret. But Cardano couldn’t resist discussing it with his student Ferrari. Ferrari used these solutions to solve quartic equations. And so we should thank the mathematicians of China, India and the Arab for solving the problems of the world in terms of numbers.