Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry’s Mysterious World of Maths
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- Episode
- Episode 1
- Broadcast Info
- 2018 (58 mins)
- Description
- In this new series, mathematician Dr Hannah Fry explores the mystery of maths. It underpins so much of our modern world that it’s hard to imagine life without its technological advances but where exactly does maths come from? Is it invented like a language or is it something discovered and part of the fabric of the universe. It’s a question that some of the most eminent mathematical minds have been wrestling with. Dr Eleanor Knox from King’s College London believes its discovered, Prof Hiranya Peiris from University College London believes its invented, Prof Jim Gates from Brown University, believes it’s both and Prof Brian Greene from Columbia University has no idea. The jury is very much divided. To investigate this question Hannah goes head first down the fastest zip wire in the world to learn more about Newton’s law of gravity, she paraglides to understand where the theory of maths and its practice application collide and she travels to infinity and beyond to discover that some infinities are bigger than others. In this episode, Hannah goes back to the time of the ancient Greeks to find out why they were so fascinated by the connection between beautiful music and maths. The patterns our ancestors found in music are all around us, from the way a sunflower stores its seeds to the number of petals in a flower. Even the shapes of some of the smallest structures in nature, such as viruses seem to follow the rules of maths. All strong evidence for maths being discovered. But there are those who claim maths is all in our heads and something we invented. To find out if this is true, Hannah has her brain scanned. It turns out there is a place in all our brains where we do maths but that doesn’t prove its invented. Experiments with infants, who’ve never had a maths lesson in their lives, suggests we all come hard wired to do maths. Far from being an invention of the human mind this is evidence for maths being something we discover. Then along comes the invention of zero to help make counting more convenient and the invention of imaginary numbers and the balance is tilted in the direction of maths being something we invented. The question of whether maths is invented or discovered just got a whole lot more difficult to answer.
- Genre
- History; Research; Mathematics
How to cite this record
The Open University, "Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry’s Mysterious World of Maths". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/231915 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)