Ben Sparks
The Creation of Number
This Tuesday, we had the pleasure of welcoming Ben Sparks – a mathematician, musician, and public speaker who delivers maths talks globally and operates the YouTube channel SparksMaths. His videos have been viewed over 16 million times. He delivered a talk about numbers and the mystery of their origin to different age groups. It was interesting to discuss the theories with friends and find out how the knowledge of numbers evolved and developed throughout history. It is fascinating how little we know about the things we use every day, especially where they came from and why. While it is not clear whether we have created numbers and the whole idea of maths or whether we are just discovering what has been there already, it is important to hear from people like Ben, who pose various questions and encourage people to philosophize about those things.
The Sound of Silence
The Tuesday evening was concluded with Ben Sparks’ presentation on “The Sound of Silence” that connected maths ideas with the basic aspects of music, such as notes and octaves. Both Maths and Music students found it interesting to hear about different frequencies that sound good together but do not necessarily match the mathematical logics behind it. – Written by Dasha, Year 13.
