crazy mathematicians on film (update)

I know I owe the dear readers a continuation of the Bond series, but I'm taking a digression to write about math in film.

An update to my previous post on this issue.

Just saw the Paltrow/Hopkins film Proof, which deals with a father and daughter who are mathematicians who each has issues with mental illness.  In the case of the father, he is presented as a leading light of his generation who, tragically, succumbed to his illness as he grew older, becoming first incapable of doing serious work, and ultimately falling apart completely.  Oh, and he died before the film started.

As for the daughter, she's dealing with two issues.  First, there are her hallucinations of her interacting with her father.  To make the movie more exciting, the film also contains flashbacks!  The second issue is the discovery of a proof that is believed to be earth-shattering in its importance.  But there is a question of authorship.  The daughter claims that she was the author, but her sister thinks it's probably her father's work. Jake Gyllenhaal's character is initially skeptical but ultimately decides it's more likely that the daughter, even with her limited background, is the author as opposed to the father, who had drifted out of the field quite a time ago and wasn't familiar with the more modern methods used in the proof.

From  my perspective, this was a bizarre point to get stuck on.  If and when I am the author of ideas, I am the master of them.  A mathematician would not be able to fake authorship of a 40-page proof of seminal importance, which is what this proof is supposed to be in this film.  There is more to the presentation of ideas than the mere words that are on the page.

Anyway, this is certainly an interesting film, even though it's yet another "crazy mathematicians" film.  I have a bit of an issue with how the people talk when they're talking about math.  They simply aren't "talking math" like working mathematicians do.  This is something that would be harder for a non-mathematician to create.  Most of the discussions about math in this film are entirely at a superficial level, and never talk about content. A few words are sprinkled in here and there, but they feel more like oregano on a salad than anything else.  (Example: in a flashback Gwyneth is talking to a math prof about some homework she hasn't done well.  He says something like: surely you're not saying that differential equations are boring!  It's hard to imagine any mathematician saying something like that, for the simple reason that differential equations are among the most boring topics in all math.)

The meta-discussions are ok, and they do a good job in terms of how mathematicians talk about math to non-mathematicians.  But when mathematicians are talking to each other (and Paltrow and Gyllenhaal are supposed to be mathematicians in this film), they don't talk about math at that level.  Concepts should be flying back and forth but we see pretty much nothing.

Trying to think of other films that do a better job at this particular issue.  Fermat's Room does so, I think.  A Beautiful Mind?  No, not really.  Certainly not Good Will Hunting.  It's the kind of thing that Stanislaw Lem does so well in his writing.  Lem actually writes fictional math, which most authors don't dare to try to do.

Having said that, I think Proof does a better job in terms of explaining the social sphere of mathematicians than most films do.  Your typical mathematician is more like the guys in this film than they are like Ian Malcolm of Jurassic Park.

Newly re-named Blog!

Since it's been over five years since I visited Darwin Building, it seemed like we were long past a time where the blog name was appropriate.

Same high-quality content, but with a fresh, new title!

This title is gluten-free and contains no cholesterol.

Oscar preview

OK, it's that time of year when I look at the list of Oscar nominees, excoriate the Academy for their bizarre choices of the recent past, and submit my predictions of how they'll screw things up this year.  In addition, you'll be favored with my preferences for the various awards.

Fair warning: I'm trying to be aware of recency bias.  And I just saw Les Mis.  Went into it with tepid expectations, based largely on the cast.  But more on that in a bit.

Best of Bond, the Blofeld films

The Best of Bond, Part 2

Continuing the series begun earlier. I’m not going to rehash all the plots. This is meant for people who have seen all the films.

I’m looking to judge these films by a number of criteria:

• Bond – who the actor is, how good he is, and what he brings to the role
• the Villain- starting with Dr. No, I judge the films on how compelling the villain is.
• the Bond Women – some films have few, some have many, but I’m pretty sure all have at least one. The quality ranges from Denise Richards’s absurd nuclear physicist to, of course, Mrs. Bond herself, not to mention Pussy Galore
• the Good Guys – M, Q, Moneypenny, Felix Leiter in his many incarnations and other sidekicks
• the Henchmen on the other side like Jaws, Oddjob, and Nick-Nack.
• the gadgets – not just judging how neat the gadgets are, but whether they were unwisely allowed to take over the film (as often happened with the later Roger Moore filims)
• whatever else I happen to think of

I’m not concerned mainly with ordinal values but rather am going to assign a number between 0.0 and 10.0 to each.

Anyway, in Part 1 I addressed the first four Connery films. Part 2 concerns the three Blofeld films, You Only Live Twice, with Sean Connery, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, George Lazenby’s sole contribution to the series, and Diamonds Are Forever, featuring the return of Sean Connery.

Parts 3 & 4 will cover Roger Moore’s many films. Part 5 will cover Never Say Never Again and the two Dalton films, Part 6 will cover the four Brosnan films, and Part 7 will look at the three Daniel Craig films

And now we move on to

You Only Live Twice

Obama caves, again

My comment, submitted to Krugman's blog

I view this offer by Obama as the latest in a long series of actions by DLC members and other "centrists" to kill the liberal wing of the Democratic party and consolidate power for themselves. Making cuts in Social Securiity while simultaneously raising taxes on the middle class (and let's be clear, that's the effect of this change to Chained-CPI) is going to be a political disaster, and will kill any credibility that the party has with anybody moderately liberal.  As a liberal, I had already decided to not vote for Obama based on my belief that he would do exactly this (and exactly now).  Obama has no credibility with me now, and his continuing embrace of conservative policies will only further demoralize liberals.

This is a time in history when the party should be moving to the left with a lot of power.  Politically, the opportunity is there.  The country has been following conservative policies for at least the last twelve years, and the results have been disastrous.  The deregulation of the 90s has led to the profiteering of recent years, and that has led to the market crashes and the "need" to bail out the banks.  None of this has been good for the middle clash.

So, with that as backdrop, Obama's genius idea is to simultaneously preserve the Bush tax cut framework for those earning up to $400k/year while cutting social security brackets and effectively raising taxes for all taxpayers.

That's brilliant.
Looking forward to the next time the terrorists of the House Republican Caucus use the debt ceiling to threaten financial disaster.

Shootings in Connecticut

Well, in this past week we've seen a gunman go nuts and shoot people at a mall in Portland, Oregon, and then a few days later a gunman went nuts and shot his wife, a kindergarten teacher at a school in Newtown, Connecticut.  And then shot 20 kids.

The Best of Bond

The Best of Bond, Part 1

In reponse to this article by Isaac Chotiner, which I feel is deeply flawed, I’ve compiled my ratings of all the Bond films, starting with Dr. No and ending with Skyfall. I’m not including the TV version of Casino Royale from the 1950s, nor the Peter Sellers send-up of the same story. Haven’t seen the former and the latter is simply of a different genre. I’m not going to rehash all the plots. This is meant for people who’ve seen all the films.

I’m looking to judge these films by a number of criteria:

• Bond – who the actor is, how good he is, and what he brings to the role
• the Villain- starting with Dr. No, I judge the films on how compelling the villain is.
• the Bond Women – some films have few, some have many, but I’m pretty sure all have at least one. The quality ranges from Denise Richards’s absurd nuclear physicist to, of course, Mrs. Bond herself, not to mention Pussy Galore
• the Good Guys – M, Q, Moneypenny, Felix Leiter in his many incarnations and other sidekicks
• the Henchmen on the other side like Jaws, Oddjob, and Nick-Nack.
• the gadgets – not just judging how neat the gadgets are, but whether they were unwisely allowed to take over the film (as often happened with the later Roger Moore filims)
• whatever else I happen to think of

I’m not concerned mainly with ordinal values but rather am going to assign a number between 0.0 and 10.0 to each. By way of calibration, 0.0 is reserved for unwatchable films like The Love Guru, while the 10.0 might only go to The Godfather. and Hot Tub Time Machine. Just seeing if you’re paying attention there.
Anyway, in Part 1 I’ll address the first four Connery films. Part 2 will do the other Connery films through Diamonds are Forever, as well as Lazenby’s sole contribution. Part 3 will cover Roger Moore’s many films. Maybe I’ll split that in half. Part 5 will cover Never Say Never Again and the two Dalton films, Part 6 will cover the four Brosnan films, and Part 7 will look at the three Daniel Craig films

Without further ado, we jump in to