Wattpad department of Applied Mathematics

Foreword

Mathematics is something I am extremely fond of. Ever since I was little, I have been fascinated by the way numbers govern our daily lives. Various forms of calculations have gone into the design and production of almost everything you see around you right now. Mankind has always depended on numbers from the very beginning when they started counting using sticks and stones. This "dependency" on numbers turned into passion for some. This, in turn gave rise to some of the greatest minds the world has ever seen. Brahmagupta, Archimedes, Pythagoras, Euclid, Diophantus etc marked the first "Golden age" of mathematics. All of them being located around the Afro-Asian boundary.

They made incredible advances in the field of Mathematics and Physics. The concept of Geometry, Fluid Dynamics, Algebra, Number Theory etc all trace their roots back to this era.

That, however, did not last long. In fact, the whole art of mathematics was lost for a while. It was lost for almost a millennia. This was due to turbulent times. Invasions of one empire by another. Wars brought about an end to the golden age, however, it was these same wars that started the second golden age of Mathematics.

During the late 1500's and early 1600's, the Catholic Spanish Armada, a fleet of 130 ships launched an attack on Elizabeth I's Protestant England. The Spanish had huge ships that carried cannons that could split the English ships into 2 with just one shot. They had the advantage in terms of the size of their ships and their arsenal on said ships. The English had ships that were much smaller. Initially, everybody would have thought that the English were at an extreme disabvantge, however, by the end of it, the Spanish were left in tatters. The English had won... and it was all thanks to Fluid Dynamics. The fact that the English ships were much smaller meant that they were easier to maneuver in the waters. This nimbleness allowed the English to duck and dive out of the Spanish attacks. At the end of the day, what the world realised from this was that Naval power was a pivotal part of showing dominance in a war; and to have a capable naval fleet, the ships have to be list, fast and nimble. There is where the rise of modern mathematics lies.

Many a mathematicians of that era tried their had at said problem. Famous mathematicians/physicists e.g. Newton, Euler, d'Alembert etc all tackled the problem. However, along with that, they also developed new groundbreaking theories and made discoveries that would change the world forever.

Newton's laws of Gravitation were used to send man to the moon. Decartes developed the cartesian graphs we see and use daily today. You can thank the Bernoullis for all the aeroplanes you see in the sky. And Euler... the man needs no introduction. Often regarded as the best mathematician ever, he is said to have solved over 700 pre-existing problems that no one could ever solve. No matter what field of science you put yourself in, you're bound to be introduced to at least one discovery that Euler has made.

There were others too like Gauss, Brunel, Fermat, Carnot, Faraday, Babbage etc. They were all important in their own fields.

Now, it's all good discovering new fields and areas of mathematics, but what use are they if we can't put them to use? I mean, what use is the Bernoulli Equation if we don't have planes, or cars, or even simple water pipes? This is where the application of mathematics comes in.

All of the greatest Engineers and Physicists can be found in the 20th century. We've all heard of Einstein, but there are many, many more. It's thanks to Heisenberg that we know the properties of  objects when in the smallest of states, e.g. electrons. We can trace the roots of Quantum Mechanics back to Schrodinger and Feynman. The Atomic bomb, although a devastating invention, was still an engineering marvel. It was all down to the hard word of Dr. Oppenheimer and the people working under him. Of course, then came the Apollo moon missions. The scientists and engineers behind the project were mostly engineers from Nazi Germany. The Germans had developed the V2 Rocket during WWII which were incredible in terms of the power it produced and the distance it traveled for its day. The Americans, clearly impressed by this, invited them over to the USA after the war to work on rockets that would send man to the moon.

Eventually, we started getting better and better in terms of technology. During the war, Alan Turing set the basis for all modern computers. Then years later, Sir Tim Berners-Lee came around and developed a system that was able to connect people through the use of the computers. This went on to become the internet.

Of course, there was the war of currents. Tesla wanted AC while Edison wanted DC. AC won in terms of power transmission due to how flexible it was, while DC is produced through stored chemical energy that can be turned into electrical energy.

And even now, we're making huge advancements in the field of Science. We may not be aware of it but the world we live in right now is advancing faster than ever before. We're constantly making things smaller, faster, more efficient. Now, due to all the effects and threats of Global Warming, science is now focusing more on efficiency. We're still making and inventing and discovering. The thing is though, there's so much more we don't know, and we have the opportunity to discover these things ourselves, and that is what is most exciting to me. That's exactly why I have pursued a career in the field of engineering. I'll start this book now, but before that, I'll leave you with a quote:

Beautiful is what we see

More beautiful is what we know

But most beautiful, by far, is what we don't

- Nicolas Steno

Don't worry, Amour books will be on their way soon!