How to See Nothingness

In our world, we see nothing out of nothingness and we see space as representation of nothing. This documentary allows me to appreciate the phenomenon existing on space. Brilliant mathematicians used their imagination that human eye cannot see yet give the boost and revolution of Mathematics from imaginary to the technology we used.

Let me give you some important points on the documentary.

In northern Italy, during the Renaissance period Piero de la Francesca painted most of his masterpieces through a Mathematical strategy, the use of Perspective. It is by bringing our 3D world to 2-dimensional in a vanishing point. A work of perspective that revolutionized mathematics.

200 years ago, a mathematician in Italy who is very drunk that day slips into a dream and in that dream he understood that indisputable facts about mathematics can build Philosophy. He came to Holland and became one of the champions of scientific revolution. In there, his philosophical ideas but radical thoughts were published in a dictionary but include many controversial. But Rene Descartes had unlocked the possibility of navigating geometry of higher dimension that our eyes cannot see. And his radical ideas up raise his insight of connecting geometry and algebra and vice versa that transformed mathematics forever.

Rivalling as the greatest mathematician in his time, there is this mathematician who proposed the action of mathematics by bringing math in games and festival. Pierre de Fermat greatest contribution is the modern number theory and his famous Last Theorem that puzzled mathematicians for 350 years. Furthermore, he loves battling with mathematical problems in their kitchen, church or even in roof yet took it seriously. He loves to play, find patterns for numbers and puzzles for numbers; finding theorems that will remain forever.

Aside from these European mathematicians, there is Isaac Newton from Great Britain who gives the expansion and great boost on Mathematics. People, even me popularized Isaac Newton because of his gravitational laws, theory of light and contribution to Physics but in mathematics Isaac Newton is famous because of Calculus. That allows making sense of calculating for example, exact speed and distance travelled in any moment of time. But this time, Newton heard about a rival from a Royal Society named Gottfried Leibniz. Leibniz work and discovery of the miracles of integral and differential calculus was locked and preserved. He is one if the inventors of calculating machine that works on binary system and forerunners of the computer. However, Calculus was first introduced in Europe by Leibniz work not by Newton and that became a trouble. So, the Royal Society credited Newton for the first discovery of Calculus and Leibniz for first publication. He was a fan of Newton’s mathematics but he was really hurt because they accused him of plagiarism and one who filed it is Sir Isaac Newton.

But the irony is that Leibniz’s work was lived in triumph than clumsy and hard Newton’s Calculus. A language providing new vision that we use today.

From Basel Britain is the family of mathematicians which produced a dozen of mathematical work- the Bernoulli’s. Johann Bernoulli and his brother Jakob like Leibniz works. And one of their very powerful contributions to math is the application of calculus to solve the “problem of the day”- the Calculus of Variation. It is used by the investors to maximize profits, and engineers to minimize energy use.

In Russia, a great mathematician that inspired by Fermat’s theory of numbers is Euler. He created the numbers like e and i and popularized the pi. Euler applied his skills to an immense range of topics, from prime numbers to optics to astronomy. He devised a new system of weights and measures, wrote a textbook on mechanics, and even found time to develop a new theory of music. And despite of losing his eyesight, he never stop doing mathematics and that’s a truly mathematician’s spirit! Euler came to a solution of the “Basel’s problem” that Daniel Bernoulli didn’t succeed. He found that the height of the vodka produced by adding infinitely a fraction squared of vodka was exactly π²/16.

And there is some mathematician like Joseph Fourier who analyses sound waves that MP3 still used this technology.

Carl Friedrich Gauss a man who is described as the Prince of Mathematics. At 10, he passed at level A and gone to a University at 12 and began criticising Euclid’s geometry. At 15, he discovered pattern of prime numbers that eluded mathematician 2000 years ago. The elliptic Function, Riemann Zeta Function, and the imaginary numbers are only examples of his great contributions. His imaginary numbers helped us to build bridges and understand radio waves. But as he became famous he became distrustful and bad. He is not interested to his work and other mathematicians’ theorem.

In Transylvania, Janos Bolyai became an army but his passion about maths dominated him and began to explore imaginary geometries or known as Hyperbolic Geometry. Actually, he did not become a famous mathematician because Gauss refused all of his letters; he died in obscurity without any publication and recognition of his work. However, in Russia there is another man named Nicholas Lobachevski who also have the same idea of Bolyai and published his work two years before him.

Bernhard Riemann a poor, shy, but a Christian child that became mathematician. His teacher brought him up to overcome his shyness and to show his potential in mathematics. One of his greatest contributions when he was 26 is his lecture about Foundations of Geometry and relating it to the real world. Descartes’ geometry acted as a potential but Riemann’s imagination of geometry really revolutionized mathematics idea without putting any restrictions on his geometry. He died at the age of 39 and in geometry and number theory his idea is still perplex and amaze. Hyperspace is not any longer a sci-fi but a fact; higher dimension of space is now at glance and glass technology developed.

Because of the development of the Calculus from Descartes to Riemann; Quantum physics, Relativity, and the important technology we used in this modern world, none of these will ever be one of us now. And because of these brilliant mathematicians who follow their passion despite of their life that seemed to be falling apart; it allowed the ordinary human, scientist, and mathematician to see the complex and ever changing natural world.