In the
first two installments of The Story of
Maths, the history of numbers and basic mathematics were revealed. The
contribution of Greeks, Egyptians and Asians were the basic foundation of our
mathematics today. The impacts of their contribution lead new generations of
mathematicians discover more. In the third installment, The Frontiers of Space, the power of geometry and calculus was presented.
I have
friends who study Architecture and I often hear them talk about something about
perspective. Even in an on-going construction site, I always see a picture and
the word perspective below it. In the movie, the perspective was said to be
lost for a thousand year but a painter named Piero della Francesca used it to
represent the three-dimensional world in a two-dimensional canvass and by doing
this, he also used mathematics.
Descartes’
one sleepless night made him realized that number could brush away uncertainty.
In Holland, he found his new home where he can express his radical ideas
without being rejected. Henk Bos, one of Cartesian scholar, merged algebra and
geometry. If not because of Descartes this kind of merging would not be
possible. Descartes served as the key to unlock the possibility of geometry of
high dimensions that are essential to physics and modern technology.
Marin
Mersenne published and let other people to know the works of Descartes. Also,
he published the works Pierre de Fermat. Fermat made modern number theory, he
discovered several number patterns. Like for example, a prime number divided
four will give you a remainder one and you can rewrite the number as two
squares added together. 17÷4 will give you remainder one then you can rewrite 17 as 12+42.
The
next mathematician was Isaac Newton, although he became famous because of
discovering gravity which is more on physics but still he also used mathematics
to solve the principle behind it, he also discovered revolutionary approach to
math which is calculus. The calculus used by many engineers and physicist can
describe the moving world.
Newton
had a rival in calculus, Gottfried Leibniz. When he was only 29 years old he
developed integral and differential calculus. Leibniz also invented practical
calculating machines that worked on the binary system. Although, Leibniz and
Newton discovered calculus, the Royal Society gave the credit to Newton and
accused Leibniz plagiarism.
Bernoulli
brothers were great fan of Leibniz; they disseminated calculus throughout
Europe. Also Bernoulli’s application to calculus became the calculus of
variation which is one of the most powerful aspects of mathematics. We are all
familiar with the “e” and “ί” number,
these were created by Leonhard Euler. He also popularized the pi (π).
Carl
Friedrich Gauss was labeled the Prince of Mathematics because in his young age,
he already criticized Euclid’s geometry, discovered new prime number patterns
and construction of a 17-sided figure. Gauss also helped people understand the
concept of imaginary numbers. Then time came when Gauss decided to survey all
the lands of Hanover, the main reason behind why he decided to do it was to
determine the earth’s shape.
Hyperbolic
geometry came from Janos Bolyai. He started this kind of geometry by calling it
as imaginary geometry where the angles in triangles add up to less than 180.
For
Bernhard Riemann, mathematics was his salvation because of his brilliance in
mathematics; he was one of the famous contributors of mathematics. Riemann also
described what geometry was and its relationship to the world.
I
consider people who contributed to mathematics as a hero, even if they are
famous or not they are still a big part of this revolution which discovers more
about the world. If not because of these people’s contributions, we would not
have known the earth’s shape, the idea of imaginary geometry, gravity, or even
the possibilities of knowing what’s outside of the earth. For me, the title
Frontiers of Space really suited the third installment of The Story of Maths.
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