Home: History of Mathematics (MATH 308): Multimedia & Web

Library Video Collection

You can search for educational videos in the library collection.

Math Videos on the Web

Dangerous Knowledge
Fascinating BBC documentary about "four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us"
Mathematics VideoLectures
"VideoLectures.NET is a free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.
Timothy Gowers --- Fun and Serious Math

Wolfram MathWorld

MathWorld^TM is an excellent academic and multimedia resource for all researchers and students of mathematics. The site offers easy browsing and searching functions.

Math Podcasts

A Brief History of Mathematics
"Professor of Mathematics Marcus du Sautoy reveals the personalities behind the calculations and argues that mathematics is the driving force behind modern science"
Calculus
"Melvyn Bragg discusses the epic feud between Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz over who invented an astonishingly powerful new mathematical tool - calculus. Both claimed to have conceived it independently, but the argument soon descended into a bitter battle over priority, plagiarism and philosophy".
Mathematical Infinity
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the nature and existence of mathematical infinity".
Mathematics on NPR
RSS feed to all stories on the subject of mathematics from the National Public Radio
Pi: The Number That Doesn't Add Up
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the most detailed number in nature. In the Bible's description of Solomon's temple it comes out as three, Archimedes calculated it to the equivalent of 14 decimal places and today's super computers have defined it with an extraordinary degree of accuracy to its first 1.4 trillion digits".
Probability
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the strange mathematics of probability where heads or tails is a simple question with a far from simple answer".
Pythagoras
"Melvyn Bragg and guests Serafina Cuomo, John O'Connor and Ian Stewart discuss the ideas and influence of the Greek mathematician Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans".
Renaissance Math
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Renaissance Mathematics. As with so many areas of European thought, mathematics in the Renaissance was a question of recovering and, if you were very lucky, improving upon Greek ideas. The geometry of Euclid, Appollonius and Ptolemy ruled the day".
Rhind Mathematical Papyrus
"The British Museum's most famous mathematical papyrus. This shows how and why the ancient Egyptians were dealing with numbers around 1550 BC. It contains 84 different calculations to help with various aspects of Egyptian life, from pyramid building to working out how much grain it takes to fatten a goose".
The Fibonacci Sequence
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Fibonacci Sequence. Named after a 13th century Italian Mathematician, Leonardo of Pisa who was known as Fibonacci, each number in the sequence is created by adding the previous two together. It starts 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 and goes on forever".
More Mathematics Podcasts from BBC Radio 4

MathDL Journal

The Mathematical Association of America publishes Loci, an online, peer-reviewed journal with articles on all areas of mathematics emphasising the importance of the history of mathematics in teaching.