The Great Math Mystery (2015) FULL SPECIAL | NOVA | PBS America

Explore math's astonishing power across the centuries. Join astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio to follow math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond, all leading to the ultimate riddle: Is math an invention or a discovery?
First Broadcast Date: June 23, 2015
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[@PedroFerreira-ze5yp]

PBS NOVA, it doesn't get any better than this!

[@manmohanmehta5697]

Things moved so fast leading to Relativity theory and long enigma of quantum physics.We the brave new world are unraveling it all

[@honeybunch5765]

Imagine all these historical math geniuses being with us today? They would be so in their element.

[@numbercruncher6242]

Not really. A lot of them were religious zealots and consumed with beliefs which they tried to use Math to show evidence for. Not all, but many of them were foolish that way.

[@mrtienphysics666]

Thanks!

[@hafiz468]

20:05 Yes, everything in this universe is discovered, not invented. Like when we say Newton’s Laws of Motion, but in reality it is Newton’s DISCOVERED laws of Motion.

[@ctlo4403]

Esperanza Spalding!!!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤

[@tatimoa]

That bass player tho khhh

[@dodgeman789]

adam is an excellent engineer i loved seeing him in the perserverance rover doc

[@PabloDaVinciEscobar]

Brilliant channel 💯 🙏

[@pauls3075]

Brilliant in relation to your level of understanding, elementary for a lot of other people.

[@PedroFerreira-ze5yp]

@@pauls3075 wow! you smart! so intelligence, so culture!

[@bakerkawesa]

Reality bends to mathematics.

[@scarter9447]

Math is emergent from the underlying dynamical system. Just like all macro properties and patterns.

[@grenenthomas8115]

Harmonic series is the only perfect musical scale.

[@topquark22]

You took the effort to interview Sir Roger Penrose, Steven Wolfram, and James Gartner for this documentary. Yet you only gave them each 5 seconds on-air. No wonder I stopped donating to PBS.

[@5ebliminal]

It's a near hour long video about math, not an autobiography about each mathematician 😂 Origins of math go as far back as 6000b.c to 3000b.c and you bring up these guys Stephen Wolfram:born 1959😂 Penrose:1931

[@Juxtaposed1Nmotion]

​@@5ebliminal Yet they still attribute those mathematical laws to their ethno European discoverers and not their original Egyptian or Arabic ones.

[@topquark22]

I did very well in mathematics in university. Often I encountered calculations involving lots of sin() and cos() functions. They always simplified down. Now I wish I had just used some change of coordinates. It would have made the paper much simpler.

[@tokajileo5928]

this video is not new, saw it many years ago

[@touchofgrey5372]

@22:20 that is not exactly a scientific way to see which hand it would take the food from! She practically places her right hand - with the most food - in front of that Lemur's mouth! A professor???

[@abinoypaulalex]

😅

[@pablocopello3592]

Math is the creation of "logically rigorous" structures(*) (mathematical theories). Those "logically rigorous structures" are created using our capacity of thinking in a "logically rigorous" way. The "logically rigorous" way of thinking is a kind of "conceptual thinking". What we (humanity) discovered, is that humans using "logically rigorous" thinking will agree (almost always) in the validity (or not) of the "logical structures", and based in the same assumptions (hypothesis) would agree on (and independently reach) the same conclusions. In mathematics, we make "assumptions" (hypothesis for a single theorem, axioms for an entire theory) and then make deductions based on those assumptions. The (initial) assumptions are INVENTED, but what is deduced based on those "assumptions" is DISCOVERED (what we "discover" is that those assumptions logically imply what is deduced). What we (humans) have "discovered" is that if our "assumptions" correspond to reality (empirical facts), what follows from these assumptions in a logically rigorous manner (that is, the mathematical structure we can build based on those assumptions) also corresponds to reality (empirical facts). In that consists the "Unreasonable Effectiveness of Math". So, the math that, given the assumptions, we build based only in our mind (but checked against other human minds), will correspond to reality (if the assumptions correspond), why ?? Because of EVOLUTION, our "logically rigorous" thinking evolved as a "tool" to help us to create mental models of our environment (the "realm" of reality more immediate to our survival), models that help us to better foresee, adapt and manipulate our environment. BUT, our logical thinking evolved to be "effective" in our "environment" (our limited "realm" of reality). It does NOT need to be "effective" for other "realms" of reality very different (alien) from our environment or very complex. For instance, chaotic systems, or consciousness, can be very complex for our capacities. A realm like Quantum Physics begins to be very anti-intuitive, but still within the limits of our logical thinking. Realms beyond Quantum are not guaranteed to be within the reach of our logical thinking. But we have to try, only trying we can know how far we can reach in our knowledge. What is out of the reach of our logical thinking is out of our reach (in terms of knowledge), at least while our logic thinking does not evolve (if it evolves to reach new realms of reality it will probably not be "biological" evolution but maybe AI). (*) A "logically rigorous" structure is a set of well defined statements (with their values of truth) that are logically related thru rigorous demonstrations. A demonstration is a logically rigorous inference (deduction) of the value of truth (True or False) of a statement based in the value of truth of other statements (hypothesis). A well defined mathematical theory has a series of statements assumed to be true (axioms) and a set of statements whose value of truth is inferred (deduced) from the axioms thru demonstrations (usually involving long "chains" of demonstrations). (Demonstrations form part of theorems (a theorem has hypotheses, thesis and a demonstration of the thesis based in the hypotheses).

[@colindean8261]

This was great but WHY oh WHY the irritating music all the way through? It's already interesting enough, you don't have to sugar coat it or "sex it up".

[@TheChild888]

Darren Aronofsky's "π" (Pi)

[@LetLoveBeVast]

Forgive me, but in all fairness to scientific approach and method: I failed to see how they have proven whether lemurs can count thesis-ish: can species deemed more primitive than us also count numbers like us?) ..? All I saw was lemurs being able to discriminate between “one all alone” and “many.” I did the same. But I also know that I know near to nothing. Would very much like to read the paper on this research. Yup. Just sayin’, bit of a geek here☝🏼 Math and the many ideas concerning its makeups is all very cool, by the way 🙏🏼

[@samuelgarrod8327]

We have no way to know how lemurs count. But the one that owns the local corner shop seems to have it sussed.

[@ritishify]

Pi (1998) Haven't even started to watch the video but there you go haha. Edit: intro was a turn-off. I'm not watching this.

[@sunalwaysshinesonTVs]

I feel the NOVA I watched as a child was far more sophisticated than the NOVA today. I was expecting to gain insight into the question. Instead, I watched a primer on this magical thing that exists called maths as if NOVA wanted to demonstrate there's this thing called maths in reality. What's next? NOVA gonna try to tell us the world is round?

[@CyberspacedLoner]

First Comment

[@touchofgrey5372]

Congratulations; You are now a member of that Lemur group!

[@mohamedroshdy5441]

Interesting behaviour, worthy of study

[@josephwiebe4617]

Anyone can build a bridge, only an engineer can build a bridge that is just strong enough to stand

[@ThermaL-ty7bw]

math is invented to describe the world around us , the number 1 has ONE corner , the number 2 has actaul TWO corners , etc ... that's all it is ... Classical Logic - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , first sentence , math and logic are formal languages the pattern we describe with it didn't have a choice in the matter , the pattern is ... just there , we saw the pattern , we needed a way to describe ... the pattern that 1 corner equals 1 it's a PHYSICAL RELATION between the concept in our head , which is also a pattern , and the pattern we see in reality it's nothing magical or woo woo , it's just a description of reality created by us the ''correspondence part'' ... is just a fluke , you might as well give it AGENCY , like a religious person does with the entire universe , maybe give it a name and a face to go with it ... it's not because it corresponds , that it somehow FITS , WE MADE IT FIT !!! that's the whole point of math and logic BEING A LANGUAGE in the first place and why it's the FIRST sentence in the classical logic department

[@VinhNguyen-yi1kk]

All this recycled footage off other related topics.

[@grenenthomas8115]

Py is infinite. So is God.

[@PracticallyZen]

Max Tegmark says all things are ultimately mathematical, I disagree. The first person subjective experience that each of us has is not captured by any mathematical nor any biological theory.

[@tokajileo5928]

it is emergent phenomena. like temperature

[@halomultiplayermoments3651]

The universe and all that is contained within is created by God is why.

[@kaiseraugustus1393]

5:26 😂 "how evolution..." you got to believe this nonsense, because it's not scientific

[@Mathematchit]

I know this episode, are you running out of ideas?

[@samuelgarrod8327]

This is hilarious bs. Brilliantly bad. 😂

[@reneerichard510]

Not bad. Outdated!