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In Our Time

Renaissance Maths

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2005

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Renaissance Mathematics. As with so many areas of European thought, mathematics in the Renaissance was a question of recovering and, if you were very lucky, improving upon Greek ideas. The geometry of Euclid, Appollonius and Ptolemy ruled the day. Yet within two hundred years, European mathematics went from being an art that would unmask the eternal shapes of geometry to a science that could track the manifold movements and changes of the real world. The Arabic tradition of Algebra was also assimilated. In its course it changed the way people understood numbers, movement, time, even nature itself and culminated in the calculus of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. But how did this profound change come about? What were the ideas that drove it and is this the period in which mathematics became truly modern?With Robert Kaplan, co-founder of the Maths Circle at Harvard University; Jim Bennett, Director of the Museum of Science and Fellow of Linacre College, University of Oxford; Jackie Stedall, Research Fellow in the History of Mathematics, The Queen's College, Oxford.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

0:04.7

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

0:08.5

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

0:18.0

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

0:24.6

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

0:29.7

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

0:36.0

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time Podcast.

0:39.0

For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK forward slash radio for. I hope you enjoy

0:46.5

the program. Hello as with so many areas of European, mathematics in the Renaissance was a question of

0:54.3

recovering, and if you are very lucky, improving upon Greek ideas.

0:58.8

The geometry of Euclid, Apollonius and Ptolemy, ruled the day.

1:02.1

Yet within 200 years, European mathematics went from being an

1:04.7

art that would unmask the eternal shapes of geometry to a signs that could track the

1:09.0

manifold movements and changes of the real world. The Indian and Arabic tradition of algebra was assimilated

1:15.0

and both Newton and Leibniz developed a calculus,

1:17.0

the maths by which we can still put men on the moon.

1:20.0

But how did this profound change come about? What were the ideas that drove it?

1:25.0

And is this the period in which mathematics became truly modern?

1:28.0

With me to discuss the new mathematics is Jackie Stoddle, a research fellow in the History of Mathematics at the Queens College, Oxford.

1:35.0

Professor Robert Kaplan co-founder of the Math Circle at Harvard University, and Jim Bennett,

1:40.0

director of the Museum of Science and fellow of Linneker College at the University of Oxford.

1:44.8

Robert Kaplan, the foundation stone for the maths of the Renaissance period was Greek geometry.

...

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