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Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry's Mysterious World of Maths

Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry's Mysterious World of Maths is a BBC documentary series presented by Dr. Hannah Fry, exploring the mystery of maths. Mathematics underpins so much of our modern world that it's hard to imagine life without its technological advances, but where exactly does maths come from? Is it invented like a language or is it something discovered and part of the fabric of the universe? It's a question that some of the most eminent mathematical minds have been wrestling with.

Episode 1 - Numbers as God


Episode 1 - Numbers as God
Dr. Hannah Fry goes back to the time of the ancient Greeks to find out why they were so fascinated by the connection between beautiful music and maths. The patterns our ancestors found in music are all around us, from the way a sunflower stores its seeds to the number of petals in a flower.

Episode 2 - Expanded Horizons
Dr. Hannah Fry travels down the fastest zip wire in the world to learn more about Newton's ideas on gravity. His discoveries revealed the movement of the planets was regular and predictable.

Episode 3 - Weirder and Weirder
Hannah explores a paradox at the heart of modern maths, discovered by Bertrand Russell, which undermines the very foundations of logic that all of maths is built on. These flaws suggest that maths isn't a true part of the universe but might just be a human language - fallible and imprecise.


Related Links
Magic Numbers - Open University
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