Alcuin of York
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The Dark Ages are often painted as an era of scholarly decline. The Western Roman Empire was on its way out, books were few and far between, and, if you believe the stereotype, mud-splattered peasants ran around in rags.
However, it was far more intellectually vibrant than you might imagine. Out of this era emerged a set of \\u2018problems to sharpen the young,\\u2019 including the famous river crossing puzzle that\\u2019s still taught in maths today. The presumed author of these riddles is Alcuin of York \\u2013 \\u2018the most learned man in the world.\\u2019 And it was this monk and his puzzles that laid the foundations for a branch of mathematics called combinatorics \\u2013 the thinking behind today\\u2019s computer coding and cryptography.
Philip Ball speaks to historian Mary Garrison from the University of York to learn of Alcuin's character and how he encouraged his students to learn for the sake of learning, as opposed to salvation. And University College London mathematician Hannah Fry shows Philip just how much of a role combinatorics plays in today\\u2019s world.
Picture: White horned goat chewing a cabbage leaf, Credit: Oxana Medvedeva
Producer: Graihagh Jackson
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