THE STORY OF MATHS:

THE GENİUS OF THE EAST

DARK AGES IN EUROPE
When ancient Greece fell into decline,
mathematical progress stagnated as
Europe fell under the shadow of the Dark
Ages. But in the East, mathematics would
reach new heights.
MARCUS DU SAUTOY VISITS CHINA
• Explores how mathematics helped build Imperial
China.
• The ancient Chinese fascination with patterns in
numbers and the development of an early version
of Sudoku; and their belief in the mystical powers
of numbers, which still exists today.
• Ancient Chinese work on equations.
MARCUS DU SAUTOY VISITS INDIA
• He discovers how the symbol for the number zero was
invented - one of the great landmarks in the
development of mathematics.
• He also examines Indian mathematicians’
understanding of the new concepts of infinity and
negative numbers, and their invention of trigonometry.
MARCUS DU SAUTOY VISITS THE MIDDLE EAST
• Looking at the invention of the new language of
algebra and the evolution of a solution to cubic
equations.
• Examines mathematical developments in the
Middle East.
ENDING JOURNEY OF MARCUS
DU SAUTOY IN ITALY
• He examines the spread of Eastern
knowledge to the West through
mathematicians such as Leonardo
Fibonacci, creator of the Fibonacci
Sequence.
GREAT WALL OF CHINA
• Stretches for thousands of miles
• Nearly 2,000 years in the making, this vast,
defensive wall was begun in 220BC to protect
China's growing empire
• An amazing feat of engineering built over rough and
high countryside
ANCIENT CHINESE
• Made calculations about distances, angles of elevation and
amounts of material.
• When a mathematician wanted to do a sum, he would use small
bamboo rods.
• Believed on the mystical power of numbers (Odd numbers are
seen as male, even numbers, female.)
• Drawn to patterns in numbers, developing their own rather early
version of sudoku. It was called the magic square.
ANCIENT CHINESE
• Geometric Progression
• The mathematical advisors decided to base the harem on a mathematical
idea.
• A series of numbers in which you get from one number to the
next by multiplying the same number each time - in this case,
three.
• It was a vast and growing empire with a strict legal code,
widespread taxation and a standardized system of weights,
measures and money.
• Mathematical textbook
• written in around 200BC - the Nine Chapters
• compilation of 246 problems in practical areas such as trade,
payment of wages and taxes. went on to apply similar
methods to larger and larger numbers of unknowns, using it
to solve increasingly complicated equations.
• Carl Friedrich Gauss
• while analyzing a rock called Pallas in the asteroid belt he
rediscovered this method which had been formulated in ancient
China centuries earlier.
Qin Jiushao
• The most important mathematician during the golden age of
Chinese Math.
• He was a fantastically corrupt imperial administrator who
crisscrossed China, lurching from one post to another.
• He was reputedly described as violent as a tiger or a wolf and as
poisonous as a scorpion or a viper so, not surprisingly, he made
a fierce warrior.
• He also found a way of solving cubic equations, and this is how
it worked.
• He used his techniques to solve an equation involving numbers
up to the power of ten.
INDIA
• Their first great mathematical gift lay in the world of
number.
• Had discovered the mathematical benefits of the decimal
place-value system and were using it by the middle of the
3rd century AD.
• Indian System of Counting:
• rank as one of the greatest intellectual innovations of
all time, developing into the closest thing we could call
a universal language.
India
• Transformed zero from a mere placeholder into a number that
made sense in its own right - a number for calculation, for
investigation.
• Used the word for the philosophical idea of the void, shunya, to
represent the new mathematical term "zero".
Brahmagupta
• brilliant Indian mathematician in the 7th century proved some
of the essential properties of zero
• His rules about calculating with zero are taught in schools all
over the world to this day.
ISLAMIC EMPIRE
• Began to spread in the 7th century across the Middle East.
• At the heart of this empire lay a vibrant intellectual culture.
• House of Wisdom
• Great library and Centre of learning was established in Baghdad
• Tts teaching spread throughout the Islamic empire, reaching schools like this one in
Fez.
• The scholars of this weren't content simply with translating other people's
mathematics.
• They wanted to create a mathematics of their own, to push the subject forward.
• The Muslim scholars collected and translated many ancient texts, effectively saving
them for posterity.
Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi
• A Persian scholar and the director of the House of Wisdom
in Baghdad
• was an exceptional mathematician who was responsible for
introducing two key mathematical concepts to the West.
• recognized the incredible potential that the Hindu numerals
had to revolutionize mathematics and science.
Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi
• Was to create a whole new mathematical language and was called
Algebra (was named after the title of his book Al-jabr W'al-muqabala,
or Calculation By Restoration Or Reduction.)
• He developed systematic ways to be able to analyze problems so that
the solutions would work whatever the numbers that you took.
• His great breakthrough came when he applied algebra to quadratic
equations - that is equations including numbers to the power of two.
Omar Khayyam
• was an 11th-century Persian mathematician who took up the
challenge of cracking the problem of the cubic.
• he travelled widely across the Middle East, calculating as he went.
• he was famous for another, very different, reason. He was a
celebrated poet, author of the great epic poem the Rubaiyat.
• His major mathematical work was devoted to finding the general
method to solve all cubic equations.
13TH CENTURY
Led by Italy, Europe was starting to explore and trade with the East.
With that contact came the spread of Eastern knowledge to the West.
Leonardo of Pisa
• The son of a customs official that become Europe's first great
medieval mathematician.
• He travelled around North Africa with his father, where he learnt
about the developments of Arabic mathematics and especially the
benefits of the Hindu-Arabic numerals.
• Better known as Fibonacci, and in his Book Of Calculating,
Fibonacci
• Promoted the new number system, demonstrating how simple it
was compared to the Roman numerals that were in use across
Europe.
• Calculations were far easier, a fact that had huge consequences for
anyone dealing with numbers - pretty much everyone, from
mathematicians to merchants.
• Today, it is best known for the discovery of some numbers, now
called the Fibonacci sequence, that arose when he was trying to
solve a riddle about the mating habits of rabbits.
Tartaglia
• A scholar who prove everyone wrong that finding a general
method to solve all cubic equations was impossible.
• At the age of 12, he'd been slashed across the face with a
sabre by a rampaging French army.
• Was the nickname he'd been given as a child and means
"the stammered".
• Lost himself in mathematics, and it wasn't long before he'd
found the formula to solve one type of cubic equation.
Fior
• a young Italian who was boasting that he too held the
secret formula for solving cubic equations.

Cardano
• a mathematician in Milan who became so desperate to
find the solution for solving cubic equations that he
persuaded a reluctant Tartaglia to reveal the secret, but on
one condition - that he keep the secret and never publish.
Cardano
• couldn't deny his student his just rewards, and he broke
his vow of secrecy, publishing Tartaglia's work together
with Ferrari's brilliant solution of the quartic.
Ferrari
• The student of Cardano
• as he got to grips with Tartaglia's work, he realized that he
could use it to solve the more complicated quartic
equation, an amazing achievement.