TTC - Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers

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TTC – Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers

November 12th, 2009

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TTC – Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers | 6.79 GB

Course No. 1499 (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture) | Taught by Edward B. Burger
Williams College | Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin

What is your definition of number?

The question is a challenging one because defining the abstract idea of number is extremely difficult. More than 2,500 years ago, the great number enthusiast Pythagoras described number as “the first principle, a thing which is undefined, incomprehensible, and having in itself all numbers.” Even today, we still struggle with the notion of what numbers mean.

Numbers neither came to us fully formed in nature nor did they spring fully formed from the human mind. Like other ideas, they have evolved slowly throughout human history. Both practical and abstract, they are important in our everyday world but remain mysterious in our imaginations.

If numbers are precision personified, why does a precise, accurate, and satisfying definition of number still elude us?

The 24 lectures of Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers explore this fascinating question and the equally fascinating history of numbers. Award-winning Professor of Mathematics Edward B. Burger’s historical, global, and conceptual approach to numbers gives you not only a revealing tour of mathematical history but shows how and why numbers evolved, as well as the transforming implications of each advance for both mathematics and society.

The Fertile Ground of Mathematical Discovery

Zero to Infinity is, at heart, a human story of great minds applying themselves to major questions and an intellectual pilgrimage through the creative breakthroughs of pure mathematics.

“The study of number is a beautiful one that has captured humankind’s imagination throughout the ages,” Professor Burger says. “It continues to inspire us to explore its endless frontiers.”

As Professor Burger notes throughout the course, the ancient construct of number is also the fertile ground of mathematical discovery. As our understanding of the world expanded and our capacity for abstract thinking grew, so too did our views of what number means. Slowly, numbers moved from useful tools for measuring quantities to their current state as abstract objects of independent interest. Modern numbers now provide physicists with new insights into quantum physics and our not-so-foreign universe.

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TTC – Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers

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