Mathematics has long been the bane of many a school kid. But some form of math is crucial for any civilization to reach technological maturity. It was certainly true here on earth and will likely be the case for any intelligent extraterrestrials who have any hope of understanding the cosmos and moving beyond their own planet.
It’s true that the history and evolution of the abstract concept of numbers and the precise nature of mathematics here on our own planet was a long and agonizing affair. But over the centuries, there have been many examples of convergent intellectual thinking about many of math’s basic problems as a forthcoming new book explains.
The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Hidden History of Math’s Unsung Trailblazers serves up a surprisingly enlightening account of how humanity harnessed numbers in a way that helped us devise calendars and methods of crop rotation. And it also provided us with the means to prove that our own bit of terra-firma is indeed a sphere and only one of numerous planets crossing the night sky.
The book’s co-authors, math historian Kate Kitagawa and science journalist Timothy Revell, provide context for just how important math is in understanding our planet, astronomy and the rocketry that first took us off world.
“Though mathematics is often presented as consisting of neat, logical sequences of ideas, proofs and theorems, its history is rarely so straightforward,” the authors write.
The first traces of human mathematical activity started to appear around 20,000 years ago, in the form of scratched tally marks on animal bones, they note.
Algebra Comes Of Age
Twenty thousand years later, “Barely a day goes by without a news headline featuring the word “algorithm,” indicating how they have become ever dominant in our everyday lives,” the authors write. But an algorithm is just a list of instructions that can be used to solve a problem or perform a task; even a recipe is an algorithm of a sort, the authors note.
As for calculus?
The mathematical study of continuous change, known as the theory of calculus, got us where we are today and is one of the most useful strides in human history. Calculus is crucial to engineering; in constructing bridges, measuring curves, and building and launching rockets.
Although the development of calculus is usually ascribed to 17th century Europe, there’s evidence that a form of calculus was being used at a school in the 14th century Indian coastal enclave of Kerala. Kerala had become a melting pot for mathematicians, the authors note.
But as the authors point out, the usual story is that English mathematician Isaac Newton and German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had each arrived at calculus independently —-some three centuries after the school at Kerala.
Like many mathematicians of the day, Newton was interested in using mathematical theory to understand both our own planet and solar system. To that end, Newton had come to the view that Earth could not be a perfect sphere, as the authors note. The spinning of it on its axis would cause the equators to experience a stronger outward force than at the poles, meaning Earth would swell there, they write. However, Newton believed this would make Earth an oblate (or flattened) spheroid rather than a sphere, they note.
Two Scientific Missions
To settle the matter, the French Academy of Sciences sent two scientific missions, one to the South America and one to the Northern reaches of Finland to take measurements that would help determine earth’s true shape.
The idea was that they would measure the speed of a pendulum clock in different locations, the authors note. The stronger the gravity, the faster the clock should tick, they write. And by measuring stars from each different location, the teams could use mathematics to figure out whether earth was a perfect sphere or not, they write.
When both missions’ data was finally reported back and analyzed, it conclusively showed that Newton was right. Earth is an oblate spheroid.
Fast Forward To The 1950s
The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the U.S. pushed the space race, rocketry and mathematics to a new fever pitch.
In the U.S., African American mathematician Katherine Johnson helped make the critical calculations that ensured that early NASA astronauts Alan Shepard and John Glenn would be successful in their suborbital and orbital flights.
Johnson also computed the path that would take the astronauts to the moon. “We told them how fast they would be going, and the moon would be there by the time they got there,” the authors quote her as saying.
The Bottom Line?
The Secret Lives of Numbers covers a lot of well-trodden territory, but importantly, it provides context on many little-known mathematicians too numerous to name here. Richly detailed and comprehensive in scope, the book offers a novel take on how both non-western cultures and women played key roles in the discipline’s development.
As for E.T. using calculators?
No matter how habitable some far-flung Earth 2.0 might be, extraterrestrials that live there would need some sort of codified method of problem-solving to understand the cosmos and to become a space-faring civilization.
