The Code Review: Our Days Are Numbered
July 27, 2011 by Nathan Rodgers
Filed under - Home, Reviews
THE CODE: Wednesday 27th July, BBC2, 9pm
We’re often so busy these days that it’s easy to forget how much of life is governed by numbers. From the concept of time to the foundations of commerce, maths is a vital component of modern day society across the world.
But looking deeper into nature, it’s obvious that numbers play a much bigger role in our lives than we think, and in a similar fashion to the way that Neo see’s green code in The Matrix, maths is all around us.
Taking us on a journey into this mysterious world that we often take for granted is Professor du Sautoy, or Professor Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy OBE, to give him his full title, a maths whizz and current Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science (a title of which he inherited from none other than Richard Dawkins).
Full of enthusiasm and obviously bursting with knowledge on the subject of numbers, the Beeb’s new pin-up professor wastes no time in getting stuck in, jetting around the world in an attempt to explain to viewers how so called strange objects and events in nature and history can be understood using simple maths skills.
From the Chartres Cathedral in France built using mysterious number combinations to the periodical cicada insect plague that hits Alabama once every 13 years, the Professor shows us that by cracking nature’s numerical code, we’ve been able to unlock some of the laws of nature and ultimately understand more of how the universe works.
The first episode in a series of three, it’s fascinating stuff for people that are interested in the subject, with more than enough theory to please most viewers. For those of you who are slightly rusty however, I’d advise you to have the paracetamol at the ready, as the show is crammed with more maths formulas that your old school teacher could fit into an entire term.
Each concept is explained visually in the simplest way possible, using everyday objects to make the subject more relevant and therefore easier to understand. I’m still bemused as to what exactly the so-called imaginary numbers are that air traffic controllers use, but apart from that I think I got to grips with everything else in the show.
Alongside an online maths treasure hunt, the Beeb are on to a winner here, and the show should be saluted for its attempts to get us interested in a subject often overlooked by many as not being exciting or interesting. In the same way that many of us have fallen in love with astronomy again through the antics of Brian Cox, perhaps Professor du Sautoy could do the same for maths.
Aside from how good the show is however, one thing you have to wonder is why in this time of cost-cutting do the BBC really have to send every presenter around the world to explain a subject? At least there’s no sign of Richard Hammond and his cherry picker, though I presume it’s because he’d be in even further over his head in this show than he is in his own.
Dreadful. Complicating. Pointless. A waste of time and opportunity.
“it’s fascinating stuff for people that are interested in the subject”
It’s tedious and rudimentary stuff for people who (not “that”) are interested in the subject – and a quick search of online forums suggests I’m not alone in this view. All the maths on display is taught in schools, some of it at primary school level, and I wouldn’t subject du Sautoy’s tedious explanation of pi to anyone above the age of about 10.
Not that he fares well elsewhere. All his intimation of some mysterious code underpinning existence itself (what’s the bet it’s just mathematics in general?) sees him miss some phenomenally basic points. Pi is related to fish because it forms a part of the area formula of the bell curve, which is the means by which he made his prediction of normally distributed fish sizes. (In other words, it has nothing to do with the fish themselves.) The cicadas appear once every prime number because natural selection has led to the species with the most suitable emergence frequencies to survive and thrive. (In other words, it’s not some amazing cosmic secret that’s been hardwired into their DNA.) Pi is not some universally mysterious number because it appears as the circumference : diameter ratio in every circle – all it confirms is that each circle in the universe is, erm, circular. By the same token, the ratio of diagonal : side in a square is the same as in every other square, but that doesn’t make it some magic number, it just confirms that all squares are the same shape. (It’s the square root of 2, incidentally, which is an interesting number but hardly proof of the existence of a cosmic code.) The decimals in pi contain every conceivable number combination not because it’s a special number but simply because it’s irrational: in any infinitely long string of essentially random digits you’ll (theoretically) eventually find every possible number combination. It’s because it’s infinitely long – means you’re not likely to run out before you’re done.
The architects of the cathedral du Sautoy visits designed the place because… Well, he never actually bothers to explain that. And imaginary (or complex) numbers make air traffic control easier because air traffic control uses the polar co-ordinate system – easily visualised as resembling your average radar screen, with its co-ordinates that radiate out from a central point, and which is used to measure complex vectors. (There, that didn’t take too long to explain, so why did du Sautoy not bother, much to the ire of practically everyone who’s viewed the episode?)
“the show is crammed with more maths formulas that your old school teacher could fit into an entire term.”
Speaking as a maths teacher, I’d argue feverishly against this assertion. Granted, the scope of the episode covers mathematical content that’s taught over years in a student’s school life, but cumulatively it amounts to no more than about half a dozen lessons. This is no more than a primer for “things the casual viewer might find mildly intriguing about maths” – though I defy anyone to get past the pi sequence without wondering who du Sautoy thinks his audience actually is.
Ultimately, fundamentally, the problem with this programme is that it’s so painfull, unutterably POINTLESS. And du Sautoy seems to be only too aware of this fact, as he makes feeble and repeated attempts to mask it by alluding to some nonsense code to unlock the secrets of everything. It’s no wonder he cites 42 at one point – they’re grounded in about as much good mathematical sense as each other.