Doing The Math: Numbers And Popular Culture

“Can you do Addition?” the White Queen said. “What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?” “I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.” “She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted.

The relationship between mathematics and culture is a long one, stretching back to the ancient Greeks, Islamic, Indian, and Chinese. Music theory depends on mathematics. Pythagoras and Confucius alike regarded “small numbers” as means of perfection. Polykleitos the elder’s Canon and Symmetria emphasized “perfect” body proportions. Perspective and diagrams were used from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance.

By the 19th century, mathematical fiction began to emerge, with Lewis Carroll’s A Tangled Tale and Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland. In the modern era, many films have made use of math formulas as a plot device, including A Beautiful Mind and Moneyball.

Regardless of whether math is considered “nerdy” or not, it has played an important role throughout history, in ways that the average person might not expect.