Page 114 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

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Marcus du Sautoy on… the importance of the history of maths

“History can be a powerful ally

in teaching difficult mathematical ideas

for the first time”

W gence during the Renaissance. But I discovered how
hen I learnt my mathematics at
school it was taught in a very
much exciting mathematics was being done in India
long before Fibonacci (c1175–c1250) kickstarted the
ahistorical manner. The people, the
cultures, the politics were all
mathematical revolution in Europe, and that there
missing. It was the ideas that
counted. I learnt how negative numbers worked. were inklings of the calculus bubbling away in India
in the 14th century, well before Newton and Leibniz
What to do with a sine and a cosine. How to calculate articulated their theory. But these historical vignettes
volumes of solids. I knew little of the history of these aren’t just interesting curiosities.
ideas. Personally, the abstract ideas were enough to Witnessing the way teachers have used excerpts
excite me, but the missing stories of where these ideas from the Story of Maths in the classroom, I’ve seen
came from could have engaged so many more in the how history can be a powerful ally in teaching
wonders of mathematics. Marcus du difficult mathematical ideas to those encountering
For example, sines and cosines were our best tools Sautoy is the them for the first time. A historical perspective
for navigating the night sky centuries before Galileo Simonyi professor has even helped me in my own journey to create
ever had a telescope in his hands. The ancient Greeks for the public new mathematical knowledge – appreciating
could use triangles and angles to tell the relative sizes understanding how a completely new mathematics appeared
of the earth, moon and sun without ever leaving the of science, and from the old has given me the tools to make my
comfort of their observatories. I think that knowing professor of own breakthroughs.
this history gives life to concepts that might other- mathematics at A historical narrative is actually hiding beneath the
wise feel like they’re invented to torture students at the University educational trajectory we take students on as they
exam time. of Oxford, and learn their mathematics. It’s not dissimilar to
Or take the formula for the volume of a pyramid. the author of building those pyramids in Giza. Each year at school
You could simply learn that it’s a third of the area of the What We Cannot we construct a new layer of the edifice on top of the
base times the height. Or you could show students the Know (Fourth ideas we encountered before. And this is exactly how
Egyptian papyrus where this formula first appears. Estate, 2017). mathematics evolved through history. What distin-
The scribe was motivated by the very practical guishes mathematics from the rest of science is that
challenge of wanting to know how many stones the the mathematics that was discovered 2,000 years ago
architects would need to build the pyramids in Giza. is as true today as it was when the likes of Euclid
The papyrus also contains the ideas of how to derive recorded the ideas in his Elements. The resilience of
the formula by approximating a pyramid by mathematics to the effects of time is due to the power
constructing a tower of rectangular boxes. of proof. Mathematical proof allows us to access
Suddenly, with context, a dry equation comes alive. truth in a manner that is almost impossible in any
I must admit that it was only when I started other subject.
exploring ways to bring mathematics to the masses The other important role that history can play for
through the books I have written and the TV my subject is to reveal that it is still a living,
programmes that I have made that I myself breathing subject. For most students,
became aware of where my subject came mathematics seems to live in some
from. In 2008 I made a series for the BBC timeless, never-changing textbook that
called The Story of Maths. It charted in has been handed down from generation
four one-hour episodes the origins of to generation. With such a picture, it’s
mathematics in ancient Egypt and no wonder that many don’t realise
Babylon, through to the amazing break- that there are so many chapters of
throughs of the last century that are the the mathematical story still to be
ingredients for the technological revolution written. What gets me up in the
we all enjoy today. morning to run to my desk are all
It was while making that programme that the unsolved problems. It’s the OXFORD UNIVERSITY IMAGES/JOBY SESSIONS
I understood how Eurocentric our view of mathematical enigmas – those
mathematics is. The story most people are fed is whose solutions will become the
that mathematics began with the ancient stories of tomorrow – that are the
Greeks and then went quiet until its resur- lifeblood of mathematics.

114 The Story of Science & Technology