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How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years by Peter Rudman
01/08/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Prometheus. 314 page illustrated and indexed hardback. Price: $26.00 (US). ISBN: 978-1-59102-477-4. Buy How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years in the USA - or Buy How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years in the UK  check out website: www.prometheusbooks.com
OK. So just what is a book on mathematics doing here? As commented previous, compiling my SF Nomenclature chapter on science, I needed to make sure I covered all bases and the one area that I hadn't tackled in my previous draft was mathematics. After all, how much SF have you read where maths is important to the story? Apparently, not a lot. Thing is, though, they do hold an important place in the universe and even for background, some familiarity will help.
What made me choose this particular book is because it examines how humans learnt how to count and do basic multiplication. The Babylonians actually used base 60 - that is, everything is based on multiples of 60 - which gives the origins of why there are 360 degrees in a circle because this is how they measured the Earth's orbit around the sun. They added the extra 5 days for their bank holidays. If you divide 360 by 12 you basically have the months of the year. As you can see, this already has some bearing on how we shaped our world from so long ago. Base 60 dealt with large numbers or the decimal system actually started off in India by counting fingers although it wasn't until the Mayans that we actually had a zero. Author Peter Rudman shows how the numbering systems develops with plenty of examples of how the numbers were written. All of which shows how Man evolved and did his sums.
From an SF point of view, this knowledge is also useful. Apply this to an invented alien species and you can work out different ways they might have had for measuring and differences in how they measure time, etc. It might be a small detail in the story but can have its uses in shaping your species.
I had to have a little chuckle with Redman about Jules Verne's 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea'. When you consider that a league is three miles and multiplying that up means 60,000 miles. Considering that the diameter of the Earth is 8,000 miles then the Nautilus would have been a spaceship on its way to the Moon and not a submarine. A sharp lesson in substance over pretty words.
I will confess that I didn't dwell heavily too much on some of the actual maths examples although did try some of the 'fun questions'. They contribute to the book but not important to the other knowledge you get. Don't be put off by them. Even algebra is only a means to show how the maths works. Redman also explains that since the electronic calculator and computer people have become lazier doing maths and although people no longer have to learn their multiplication tables but failing to understand how doing maths can be appreciated. It doesn't seem to be just an American problem. I doubt if this book will turn you into a maths wizard but it will show you the importance of numbers and its application to science.
GF Willmetts
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