Chris Higgins
BBC’s “Story of Maths” Documentary
by Chris Higgins - September 17, 2009 - 6:30 PM

Looking for a fun documentary on math? (Sorry, “maths” for you Brits.) The BBC’s Story of Maths is a history of the growth of mathematics from its earliest origins to its present applications. My favorite parts are the early stuff — math used by Babylonians and early Greeks, math in early farming, math in early trade, and so on — you’ll see a lot of that in this first episode. It’s a four-episode series, each episode broken into six parts…just search YouTube for “story of maths” to find them all (or consult this YouTube playlist). Here’s the first episode (part 1 first, other parts after the jump):

For more, check out this YouTube playlist.

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Comments (9)

  1. how about the egyptians?surely they used math to build all those pyramids

    posted by kim on 9-17-2009 at 10:36 pm

  2. I love the series. Shame I didn’t see the ENTIRE series. The BBC (and National Geographic) have the best documentaries around.

    posted by Karl on 9-18-2009 at 4:50 am

  3. Do the Brits really call it “mathS”?! Sorry, but I gotta call them out on this one. As I suspect with “colour” and “aluMINium”, they’re just doing this to be difficult.

    posted by TBV on 9-18-2009 at 9:12 am

  4. I love this documentary! A great watch.

    posted by meet on 9-18-2009 at 1:42 pm

  5. I love math history. It’s interesting that the concepts of 0, negative numbers, irrational numbers and imaginary numbers were all initially opposed and wideley rejected.

    Ok, I see their point with imaginary numbers, but 0?

    posted by Bryan on 9-18-2009 at 2:19 pm

  6. Yep, it’s MATHS, short for mathematics, which I suppose is similar to physics in taking the plural form. And its colour and honour. Don’t forget, we speak English, not American.

    As for the aluminium / aluminum thing, you guys decided to drop the “i” in 1925. I think everyone else in the world has stuck with the extra “i” to fit with other metallic compounds such as cadmium.

    posted by Pat Ronising on 9-18-2009 at 3:54 pm

  7. I’m with Pat; the aluminum thing was kinda our (America’s) bad. I also apologize for using the term “bad” in that context, it’s just egregious.

    posted by Chris Higgins on 9-18-2009 at 5:13 pm

  8. his was excellent documentary made by bbc and excellent work of Marcus du Sautoy to unravel the history of mathematics ( of which i was found of from my child hood ) so i request the Video to be made available with coverage of compleate history of mathematics up till todays discoveries

    posted by syed aune ali on 7-30-2011 at 1:20 pm

  9. excellent documentary made by bbc and excellent work of Marcus du Sautoy to unravel the history of mathematics ( of which i was found of from my child hood ) so i request the Video to be made available with coverage of compleate history of mathematics up till todays discoveries

    posted by syed aune ali on 8-4-2011 at 12:32 pm

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