The Genius of the East

The second part of the Story of Maths is all about the Genius of the East. As the West faced the dark ages, the Mathematics of the east continued and even progressed. The unbelievable History of the Math of the East is documented in this film, as the reporter visited China and discovered how Math changed and developed the big country. Through the help of mathematics, China was able to make engineering projects, such as the amazingly built Imperial China and its Great wall. The reporter also highlighted the belief of China of the mystical powers of numbers, It is also been highlighted in this film, the unique way Chinese vendors weigh and price their products. Next to China, is India a colorful world with its unique culture and tradition. As It explores the country, He found out that India originated and introduced the symbol for number zero where he proved this by showing zero inscriptions on one of its historical buildings and the understanding of infinity and negative numbers of mathematicians in India. The film also emphasizes that India during the early days, have used trigonometry, the reporter walked to a building filled with remarkable trigonometric shapes.

            The journey continued in the Middle East where the invention of the new language Algebra is originated, and the solving of cubic equation, which is widely used today. He then went to the west, and explained the spreading of the knowledge of mathematics of the East to the West. How West used the knowledge of the East and developed it to what we know as Mathematics today.

I was amazed, of how the East originated their knowledge of Mathematics. As they used it to build strong and well-known buildings, they used mathematics for their trading, their belief in mathematical numbers as sacred and mystical, and their discoveries that will lead to the present. I was impressed and feel proud for these countries, since they are the foundations of the present Mathematics, although they used it differently, for they used it to survive and make a simple living, as of today, we used Mathematics as a fundamental requirement to the various career we undertake and It is used today for scientific discoveries, and architectural buildings to improve and make our lives easier. Before this film, I thought only Egypt and the western were the only ones who founded Math, but as I watched the film, I discovered that there are many countries in the East contributed and used mathematics as early as I thought. Through their discoveries, people today were able to use and improvised these findings and apply it to their lives.