The collection consists of two series hosted by Professor Marcus Du Sautoy, a mathematician at Oxford. The first, and longest, is called The Story of Math and it contains four episodes at an hour each. This documentary takes viewers from the earliest recorded math writings and discoveries, all the way to present discussions, and touches on all the major mathematicians along the way. Each episode not only features a myriad of topics and people that have shaped our world and understanding, but it does so in a fairly easy to understand language that shouldn't lose most people. Well, at least not people that have even a passing interest in math, but then again, those that don't wouldn't be watching this series in the first place.
The documentary starts off in the ancient world and touches on the Egyptians, Greeks and Babylonians. We learn why they needed to develop a formal mathematics and how they used these early concepts to make their jobs easier. From there, Du Sautoy takes the viewers to the East. While the Western world was in the Dark Ages, the Eastern societies were making advances and discoveries that would be adopted by most people and help bring about the Renaissance period and their advances in mathematics. From there, the show gets close to our own time period and starts to talk about many of the issues mathematicians are still trying to discover and prove, many of these involving prime numbers.
The other major documentary in The Story of Math Collection is called The Code. In this three part series, Du Sautoy explains how math is infused in everything. Not only have humans recognized fundamental aspects of this underlying mathematics and used it in architecture and art, but nature abides various magic numbers as well. This includes everything from Pi to the golden ratio found in many of nature's patterns to prime numbers and how many animals follow life cycles that occur on these strange series of numbers. The first episode focuses on how our world follows the numbers of this "code," while the second goes a step further and handles how nature uses regular shapes to make everything from bubbles to rock formations to conserve mass and build strength. The last episode in this documentary touches on using math to predict observations in the world. Du Sautoy explains how a small sample of caught fish can tell him how many fish a particular fisherman has captured and what the size range of those fish are. He also uses his skills to launch a large metal ball into the air and predict exactly where it will land, and he is so confident in his calculations that he will sit just past the predicted point with fear of being crushed.
The Story of Math and The Code are the collection's two major documentaries, but there is a smaller one called The Music of the Primes that runs just over an hour, but it is a highly focused discussion on prime numbers and the mathematicians that have been exploring this field of study. There is a little bit of overlap material with The Story of Math, but where the longer documentary merely touches on the subject, this one goes to a much greater depth.
Lastly, the collection contains a couple of books for each documentary discussing the topics in the shows and containing a glossary of terms, not to mention three short mini-documentaries that touch on the number Phi, how one particular culture multiplies without multiplication and a short biography on M.C. Escher and the math behind his works.
Like I said, I really enjoyed The Story of Math Collection, but then again, it was pretty much geared for me. My studies took me to computer science, so while I have to deal a lot with math, I never got to delve into the history of the subject, nor do I typically have to deal with anything as advanced as calculus in my day-to-day work, so many of the topics touched on in this show caught my interest and sparked a bit of a desire for some personal studies as well. I can also see this being a good set of DVDs for someone who hasn't quite decided what to do with their studies yet, but has a knack for math. It might guide them to this particular long-standing discipline. That being said, I know a lot of people who would look at this boxed set in the store and roll their eyes at it because it holds absolutely no interest for them. The Story of Math Collection is definitely not for them.
