The Origins of Math

BBC Four’s The Story of Maths, hosted by professor and pop-sci extraordinaire Marcus du Sautoy, is a 4-part series about the evolution and history of mathematics.

The first episode, called The Language of the Universe, discussed the contributions of the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek civilizations in developing mathematics. Egyptians had problems on bureaucracy and land management, thus, needed a counting system to solve their problems. They were the earliest to use the 10 base number system which was based on the fingers of human hands, which could've solved those problems which made them successful during their existence.

The Babylonian civilization used the 60 base number system, which is used to partition time and angles. They also set generalized solutions in schools and had developed way in solving some quadratic equations.

The Greeks then bridged the practical use of mathematics to its philosophical and logical functions. They have developed postulates, theorems, axioms and corollaries which are still considered true to this day.

This series made me open my mind to the actual purpose of mathematics. All I knew about it was it was just a game of numbers and figuring out the correctness of numerical statements. Knowing the reason of its birth and development is another way of sensing purpose of this branch of science. The beauty of these contributions is that they are still used and applied in the present time. In the academe, Greek contributions are still taught, especially in the field of geometry. This could be a good starter for those who don't understand the reason of math in order for them to appreciate it and open themselves in understanding its science.