Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers

Challenging the Rationality of Numbers (1x8)

Air date: Jan 01, 2007

Babylonians and Egyptians used rational numbers, better known as fractions, perhaps as early as 2000 B.C. Pythagoreans believed rational and natural numbers made it possible to measure all possible lengths. When the Pythagoreans encountered lengths not measurable in this way, irrational numbers were born, and the world of number expanded.