Mathematics

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 1999

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the way perceptions of the importance of mathematics have fluctuated in the 20th century, the nature of mathematical ability, and what mathematics can show us about how life began, and how it might continue. Galileo wrote “this grand book the universe… is written in the language of mathematics”. It was said before Galileo and has been said since and in the last decades of the 20th century it is being said again, most emphatically. How important is maths in relation to other sciences at the end of the twentieth century - will it ever be made redundant, or is it increasingly crucial to our understanding of the world and ourselves? What insight can it give us into the origins of life, and the functioning of our brains, and what does it mean to say that maths has become more ‘visual’?With Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics and Gresham Professor of Geometry, University of Warwick; Brian Butterworth, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College, London.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:12.0	Hello, Galileo wrote,
0:14.0	this grand book, The Universe, is written in the language of mathematics.
0:18.0	It was said before Galileo, and has been said since,
0:21.0	and in the last decade of the 20th century it's being said again, most emphatically.
0:26.0	So how important is maths in relation to other sciences at the end of the 20th century?
0:31.0	What insight can it give us into the origins of life and the functioning of our
0:34.5	brains? And what does it mean to say that mathematics has become more visual? Joining Meese and
0:39.7	Stewart who's professor of mathematics, Gresham Professor of Geometer at the University of Warwick,
0:44.3	and one of the country's most prolific popularizers of mathematics having written or co-authored
0:48.5	over 60 books on the subject.
0:50.7	Also an active research mathematician with over 120 published papers.
0:54.0	His most recent book was Life's Other Secret,
0:57.0	The New Mathematics of the Living World,
0:59.0	published last year.
1:00.0	Brian Butterworth is Professor of Cognitive
1:02.8	Neuroscience at University College London.
1:05.0	His book The Mathematical Brain has just been published.
1:08.0	It looks at the way in which the brain deals with numbers
1:11.0	and how this is influenced by cultural factors.
1:13.4	Currently he's conducting research in Britain, Italy and China on arithmetical processes
	...

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