NOVA
Season 42 Episode 17 - The Great Math Mystery
Join NOVA on a mathematical mystery tour—a provocative exploration of math's astonishing power across the centuries. We discover math's signature in the swirl of a nautilus shell, the whirlpool of a galaxy, and the spiral in the center of a sunflower. Math was essential to everything from the first wireless radio transmissions to the prediction and discovery of the Higgs boson and the successful landing of rovers on Mars. Astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio, along with a colorful cast of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, follow math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond. It all leads to the ultimate riddle: Is math a human invention or the discovery of the language of the universe?
Episodes in Season 42
Vaccines Calling the Shots
55 min
Rise of the Hackers
55 min
Why Planes Vanish
55 min
Surviving Ebola
55 min
Ben Franklin's Balloons
55 min
First Air War
55 min
Bigger Than T. rex
55 min
Emperor’s Ghost Army
55 min
Killer Landslides
55 min
First Man on the Moon
55 min
Big Bang Machine
55 min
Sunken Ship Rescue
55 min
Sinkholes—Buried Alive
55 min
Colosseum: Roman Death Trap
55 min
Petra: Lost City of Stone
55 min
Hagia Sophia: Istanbul’s Ancient Mystery
55 min
The Great Math Mystery
55 min
Invisible Universe Revealed
55 min
Nazi Attack on America
55 min
Lethal Seas
55 min
Chasing Pluto
55 min
Nuclear Meltdown Disaster
55 min
