Math at the Movies: x+y

Well, this was a pain in the backside to edit. The film is so tawdry and dull that we kept getting lost on tangents. Fear not though faithful listener, Thomas has edited the two hours of guff down to a single hour of solid... bronze.

Today's discussion points include: 

• How should you flip a mattress?
• Does the culture you grow up in influence how you learn maths?
• BUMFIT!

From our mouths to your ears, enjoy!

 

If you want to watch x+y, you can follow the link below.

Further reading links:

• As per usual some artistic license was taken with this true story, this website provides the fact behind the fiction;
• Fancy testing yourself with real IMO problems?
• What is the difference between IMO problems and research mathematics?

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Follow us on twitter @PodcastMathsAt, as well as @ThomasEWoolley and @benmparker.

Maths at the Movies: CUBE

This week is a little different, and I've got to say perhaps one of the most interesting episodes we've ever done!

We are joined by the multi-talented

Dr Lyle Skains

who uses her research knowledge of evolutionary biology and digital literature to show us how to really write a good movie!

Highlights this week are:

• Liz geeking out with Lyle, will they go on holiday together?
• Ben misunderstanding publishing, will he ever get his cheese and wine?
• Thomas reliving his childhood years, when did he stop being so nihilistic

If you're interested in watching CUBE you can follow the Amazon link below. 

Further reading links:

• Wondering what digital fiction looks like? Well try What football will look like in the future? and prepare to have your horizons expanded.
• If you're interested in the future of literature then have a look at Lyle's recent book. It discusses such subjects as: indie publishers, hybrid authors, and fanfiction writers.
• Lyle's also written plenty of digital fiction. Again, this is reading, but not as we know it.
• If you're lazy and got be bothered to read then why not try Lyle's podcast Wonderbox publishing.
• If you've seen CUBE, when not try CUBE ZERO and CUBE 2: Hypercube. They are equally as bonkers!
• The geocities CUBE website that actually investigated the mathematics more than we did!

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Follow us on twitter @PodcastMathsAt, as well as @ThomasEWoolley and @benmparker.

Maths at the Movies: Good Will Hunting

Last week we did A Beautiful Mind and now Good Will Hunting. We are really hitting all the well-known maths films at the moment aren't we?

More importantly joining us this week we have the wonderful

Dr James Grime

Philanthropist, playboy, billionaire... he is none of this things, but he may have identified the real Will Hunting!

This week we touch on such subjects as:

• Is University a scam?
• Good Will Hunting needs a prequel!
• Will James and Liz ever write a paper about the maths of Dirty Dancing?

 

If you're interested in watching Good Will Hunting you can follow the Amazon link below. 

Further reading links:

• What is the Hadwiger-Nelson problem and who is Aubrey de Grey?
• We also mention the fields of Combinatorics, Graph theory and Fourier theory.

Subscribe via iTunes.
Follow us on twitter @PodcastMathsAt, as well as @ThomasEWoolley and @benmparker.

Maths at the Movies: A Beautiful Mind

Ok, so the "Maths at" timeline is a mess.

• The Christmas episode was recorded in November.
• The Christmas episode reveals secrets from later on in the series.
• We tried to hide these secrets in the Mean Girls episode, which was recorded around seventh, but released first.
• When we I say that we've had a complaint about Liz's language it from the pi day episode, not the Mean Girls episode.

Is that all clear? And this is all because the recording quality of this episode is a little dodgy!

Sorry about all that. Just pretend that Thomas, Ben and Liz are Time Lords.

Anyway, we had to get there eventually. Probably number one of many science film lists: A Beautiful Mind. The biopic of John Nash, a prodigy behind the field of game theory.

To help us discern our cooperators from our defectors we are joined by the wonderful

Dr Vince Knight

So, if you're wondering:

• which queue to join;
• which region in Risk to take;
• or simply how to win at Monpoly,

then don't ask us, we're all about the theory!

If you're interested in watching A Beautiful Mind you can follow the Amazon link below.

Further reading links:

• John Nash's biography;
  
• John Nash's reference letter, thesis and other assorted ephemera;

Subscribe via iTunes.
Follow us on twitter @PodcastMathsAt, as well as @ThomasEWoolley and @benmparker.

Maths at the Movies: pi

This week we watched pi.

Sadly there were no tigers, boats or Dev Patel in this movie.

Nope, this film was an avant garde, mood piece, seething with questioning the meaning of truth and its place in the lives of humans and the universe.

In other words pretentious.

However, none Darren Aronofsky's nonsense matters. What you should be listening for is Ben's rendition of "Euclid's people" a song of his own creation sung to the tune of "Common people" by pulp.

You've got to hear it to believe it.

If you're interested in watching pi you can follow the Amazon link below.

 

Further reading links:

• play go online;
• find your birthday in pi;
• more pi facts than you can shake a stick at;
• weird ways of calculating pi;
• known digits of pi over time.

Subscribe via iTunes.

Maths at the Movies: Proof

In this episode we watch the movie Proof.

Did Gwyneth Paltrow really prove the theorem? What theorem was she trying to prove? How many vaginas does a Time Lord have?

All these questions and more are discussed in this weeks Maths at the Movies.

If you're interested in watching Proof you can follow the Amazon link below.

Further reading links:

• more about the amazing life of Sophie Germain;
• who was Erdos?;
• calculate your Erdos number;
• what are prime numbers good for?;
• the ideas behind the Four Colour Theorem;
• buy the book of the play.

Subscribe via iTunes.