On Radio 4 Now

Midnight News

Midnight News

00:00 - 00:30

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Coming up at: 00:30

Book of the Week

View full schedule

  1. BBC Radio 4
  2. Programmes
  3. A Brief History of Mathematics

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

Programmes:
on BBC iPlayer (10)
Previous programmes:
by year (10)

Available now on BBC iPlayer

  1. Listen to the latest programme

    Nicolas Bourbaki

    More:
    programme information

    Listen now (15 minutes)

    Available since Fri, 25 Jun 2010.

    10/10. Nicolas Bourbaki, the mathematician that never was.

  2. Also available

    1. Hardy and Ramanujan

      More:
      programme information

      Listen now (15 minutes)

      Available since Thu, 24 Jun 2010.

      9/10. GH Hardy, whose work inspired the millions of codes that help to keep the internet safe.

    2. Henri Poincare

      More:
      programme information

      Listen now (15 minutes)

      Available since Wed, 23 Jun 2010.

      8/10. Professor Marcus du Sautoy argues that mathematics drives science.

    3. Georg Cantor

      More:
      programme information

      Listen now (15 minutes)

      Available since Tue, 22 Jun 2010.

      7/10. Professor Marcus du Sautoy argues that mathematics drives science.

    4. The mathematicians who helped Einstein

      More:
      programme information

      Listen now (15 minutes)

      Available since Mon, 21 Jun 2010.

      6/10. Bernhard Riemann, the man who showed mathematicians how to see in four or more dimensions.

See all 10 programmes available now.

Featured

Galileo Galilei (The Assayer, 1623):

'The universe cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language... without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word'

Coming up

Sorry, no programmes coming up.

bbc.co.uk navigation

BBC © 2012

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.