Mathematics: The Gate and Key to the Sciences (Movie Review Part 1)

Mathematics: The Gate and Key to the Sciences

                Roger Bacon, a medieval English philosopher quoted that mathematics is the gate and key to the sciences. He also mentions that neglect of mathematics leads to harm to the other sciences and those who are ignorant of it would not understand the sciences of the world.  It is true that mathematics is the gate or the way to the sciences of the world and it is key to its development and advancement.

In the documentary, Marcus du Sautoy travelled to the places where different early civilizations used to be and he was searching for evidences of early forms of mathematics. And in his search, he found early Egyptian, Greek and Babylonian evidences of mathematics. These civilizations used their early form of mathematics to calculate. The word “calculate” has a heavier meaning to many other people than just solving problems for academics. The early engineers used mathematics to calculate their moves, construction and problems. These problems ranged from how to distribute bread evenly to a group, creating the early version of some board games, and up to how they would construct the great pyramids in Egypt. Each of their success in the different fields involved mathematics in a way and each problem solved led to advancement in different fields of science. If it wasn’t for the works of Plato, Pythagoras, and the other contributors, the advancement in the different sciences today would not have been possible. Who would have thought that these great works and discoveries would have such great connection and contributions to today’s technology? And now the present is in awe of the great works of the past, as we realize that these civilizations founded the majority of what we are today thru the constant changes and discoveries in the field of mathematics, which then leads to more discoveries and technologies. The video documentary was a great eye opener to those who are still ignorant to the history of mathematics. It gives great insight on its evolution all the way from ancient times. One can truly appreciate it after watching the documentary.

Roger Bacon truly was right. The documentary supports his claim that mathematics is a big factor to the advancement of the sciences. Ignorance to mathematics would really lead to gaps in the other sciences. Sure math is troublesome, difficult and not that interesting but as we look back at the past, the way that the documentary did, we learn how to appreciate mathematics due to its great contributions to mankind.