Marcus du Sautoy

A humor-inflected history of the of the number one, covering military applications in ancient Rome, the measurement of distances in India, and the decimal system created by Leibnitz.

In September 2011, an international group of scientists has made an astonishing claim - they have detected particles that seemed to travel faster than the speed of light. It was a claim that contradicted more than a hundred years of scientific orthodoxy. Suddenly there was talk of all kinds of bizarre concepts, from time travel to parallel universes. So what is going on? Has Einstein's famous theory of relativity finally met its match? Will we one day be able to travel into the past or even into another universe? In this film, Professor Marcus du Sautoy explores one of the most dramatic scientific announcements for a generation. In clear, simple language he tells the story of the science we thought we knew, how it is being challenged, and why it matters.

Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, escorts you through the most important of all intellectual disciplines: Mathematics, the Empress of the Sciences.

For more than 2,000 years, a mathematical riddle has baffled the world’s greatest minds. It’s a problem of such difficulty that it has tormented those brave enough to tackle it. Some have given up in despair. Others have been driven mad. Primes are fundamental to mathematics yet they seem to surface entirely randomly along the number line. But are the primes truly random or is there some hidden pattern? It’s the greatest unsolved problem of mathematics. In The Music of the Primes, Marcus du Sautoy investigates the fascinating story of great mathematicians who have all grappled with the problem of the primes

In September 2011, an international group of scientists has made an astonishing claim - they have detected particles that seemed to travel faster than the speed of light. It was a claim that contradicted more than a hundred years of scientific orthodoxy. Suddenly there was talk of all kinds of bizarre concepts, from time travel to parallel universes. So what is going on? Has Einstein's famous theory of relativity finally met its match? Will we one day be able to travel into the past or even into another universe? In this film, Professor Marcus du Sautoy explores one of the most dramatic scientific announcements for a generation. In clear, simple language he tells the story of the science we thought we knew, how it is being challenged, and why it matters.