If your pupils find maths hard they're in good company, for some of the greatest mathematicians of the past struggled with the same maths that's now taught in school. But if pupils appreciate this struggle and realise how mathematics developed over the centuries, they might better understand some of the difficult topics we except them to grasp. Using objects in the Science Museum, presenter Matthew Tosh looks at these key mathematical concepts: How our present day numbers developed, using just nine symbols and a zero to create a system based on the important concept of place value. How mathematicians accepted negative numbers only comparatively recently, having for centuries regarded them as 'absurd', 'nonsensical' and 'meaningless'? How modern metric measures came about and the relationship between them. How algebra and ways of writing it down developed - and much more.

Video Series: Secondary Maths
Release Date 2009