The Story of Mathematics

‘In order to understand the universe you must know the language in which it is written. And that language is mathematics.’

Galileo (1564-1642)


For hundreds of thousands of years, we have sought order in the apparent chaos of the universe. Mathematics has been our most valuable tool in that search, uncovering the patterns and rules that govern our world and beyond. The Story of Mathematics traces humankind’s greatest achievements, plotting a journey from innumerate cave-dwellers, through the towering mathematical intellects of the last 4,000 years, to where we stand today.


Topics include:

• Counting and measuring from the earliest times

•The Ancient Egyptians and geometry

•Working out the movement of the planets

•Algebra, solid geometry and the trigonometric tables

• The first computers

•How statistics came to rule our finances

•Impossible shapes and extra dimensions

•Measuring and mapping the world

•Chaos theory and fuzzy logic

Set theory and the death of numbers


The fascinating personalities behind world-changing discoveries in mathematics are profiled, including Euclid, Apollonius, Pythagoras, Brahmagupta, Aryabhata, Liu Hui, Omar Khayyam, al-Khwarizmi, Napier, Galileo, Pascal, Newton, Leibniz, Gauss, Riemann, Russell and many more.