Mathematician Jordan Ellenberg breaks down Math films & TV shows
Professor of Mathematics Jordan Ellenberg breaks down some famous scenes from movies that depict maths on-screen, including 'Good Will Hunting', 'Jurassic Park', 'Moneyball', and 'The Simpsons'. His new book Shape is available to buy now: amzn.to/3ItiXpd
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong, a hugely entertaining exploration of the geometry that underlies our world
How should a democracy choose its representatives? How can you stop a pandemic from sweeping the world? How do computers learn to play chess? Can ancient Greek proportions predict the stock market? (Sorry, no.) What should your kids learn in school if they really want to learn to think? The answers to all these questions can be found in geometry.
If you're like most people, geometry is a dimly-remembered exercise, handed down from the ancients, that you gladly left behind in school. It seemed to be a tortuous way of proving some fact about triangles that was obvious to you in the first place. That's not geometry. OK, it is geometry, but only a tiny part, that has as much to do with the modern, fast-moving discipline as conjugating a verb has to do with a great novel.
In Shape, Sunday Times-bestselling author Jordan Ellenberg reveals the geometry underneath some of the most important scientific, political, and philosophical problems we face, from the spread of coronavirus to rise of machine learning. The word 'geometry,' from the Greek, means 'measuring the world.' But geometry doesn't just measure the world - it explains it. Shape shows us how.
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My wife loved Jordan's book "Shape". Partner of a mathematician is a great target audience. What Jordan is doing here is difficult. There is a long tradition of shining high-minded snark on popular depictions of mathematics; see for example the writings of Dan Rockmore. This genre is constrained in the same way as "conservative columnist" for WaPo, for one's conclusions need to satisfy a particular audience, and are mostly predetermined. When we read math papers, we use all of our powers to deduce what the author intended. That’s not the stance here. I was the math guy for ABM. Not the first; the creative team could not reach an understanding with my dapper predecessor on how to balance the needs of math and cinema. My profession is ill-equipped to help here, for our only fiction writing experience is grant proposals. Until Nash's breakdown, much of the math is taken from his papers. For example, in grad school Nash used all 24 Greek letters in a paper. As luck would have it, a widely circulated publicity still showed Russell Crowe staring through his dorm window with "0 < pi < 1" scrawled on the glass. Anyone who imagines that math requires great flexibility of mind would be dismayed to learn that mathematicians can be cripplingly conventional. This photo bothered colleagues who could only imagine "pi" meaning, well, "pi". A hilarious UC Berkeley email exchange wondered if the math consultant was trying to make Russell look stupid. I edited an interview on the DVD extras where Nash proudly explains this use of the Greek alphabet. During Nash's recovery, the filmmakers asked that the math be a fictionalized approach to the Riemann Hypothesis. Nash himself asked me about the porch clipboard, a novel notation for continued fractions. In the library scene here, the blackboard is adapted from famous related work in the 1960s. Nash is being generous with the grad student who missed the memo on covering spaces. I had this exact conversation with Barry Mazur when I saw this connection between my courses at Harvard. Barry simply responded with utter joy, "It's all connected!" As a failed painter, my favorite scene would be the board Nash erases. Before ABM, math in media was always four lines like a physics T-shirt. After ABM, one sees math as Jackson Pollock in ads everywhere.
I saw film criticism in a fresh light during rehearsals. In preparation for the Go sequences I consulted a highly ranked player. Go boards aren't quite square, and one could make excellent arguments for either orientation. This question is polarizing in the same way as "What is pi?", and she went off on me that I was going to destroy the game of Go if she didn't immediately replace me as consultant. During rehearsals, Russell Crowe and Josh Lucas stumbled making specific Go moves while acting; we decided that I'd make the closeup moves with second unit. As we broke for lunch, I offered "This is why the film doesn't have a Go consultant. A Go consultant would commit ritual suicide right now." Russell suggested that they should put my phone number in the credits. Then everyone in the room recited their harshest reviews, word for word from memory, to enormous peals of laughter. What Ron Howard does is deliberate, and successful.
@@davebayer5353 I loved reading your story. However I can say that the truly controversial question is "which pie are we having?" And that's from the partner of a baker (whom I still have to help with anything coming close to maths).
I loved your line "our only fiction writing experience is grant proposals" 🙂 Concerning A Beautiful Mind, I went looking for John Nash's PhD thesis recently to see whether the graphs he includes in his submission in the movie of a convex hull were actually in there - I was disappointed to discover they were not - it's "just" 28 pages of terse mathematical text (which is in itself hugely impressive!).
Do you have any insight into the origins of baffling "pen tribute" scenes?
Oh, okay.....
I like how the simpsons leaves math jokes for people like him and the dynamite gag for people like me.
It's always been unbelievably clever hasn't it.
I had to laugh way too much about this comment.
Those who find no enjoyment in the Simpsons show, have lost the will to live.
@@johanrunfeldt7174 when they used to be clever ....
I felt that in my heart and soul
This is a really good idea by Penguin. Having the authors talk about their passion is a much better advertisement for their work than just talking about the book. If the author is interesting, we will want to read what they wrote. This guy was interesting.
Indeed, and they can reach a much wider audience with this approach
This guy taught my discrete mathematics course 12 years ago. Best math lecturer I ever had!
@jshowa o I suggest looking at some KZhead videos KZhead helped me through most of my discrete math in my computer engineering classes
@Maiahi UW Madison
''He wrote, "A is to B, as A is to A + B". And he means "as A + B is to A", because if A is to B as A is to A + B, that would mean that B and A + B were the same, which would mean that A was zero, which is, I think, not what he means to say.'' After reading this 10 times I still don't know what he said
@@vinnieg6161 A/B=A/(A+B) means that A²+AB=AB whence A=0
My favourite TV math scene is in Sesame Street, when the Count taught Big Bird how to count to 5. Now I didn't really buy it, birds can't speak English, and I didn't buy the acting, but boy was it passionate. It brought a tear to my eye
I imagine this scene will be covered in a future episode with a zoologist. I love sesame Street, but that is a rookie mistake!
Hands down the true OG to media and films being inspired by mathematics 😩🙌
I found it funny how Jordan says mathematicians make mistakes with greater than (>) and less than (
I love how Jordan saw that A is to B mistake in Pi for what it was supposed to be. Aronofsky admits this very mistake in the directors commentary.
"Get me that butterfly!" Comedy gold. 🦋
IMO, Jeff Goldblum is always the best part of any movie he's in.
I don't know about that, I reckon he was the second best actor in The Fly, and the fly was easily the best. Like I bought the fly as a fly 100%
I am extremely surprised about how much mathmaticians are involved in the movie industry.
Mathematicians are involved pretty much everywhere
It doesn't add up.
If they make a film with medical scenes they will generally have a medical consultant, same for maths and any area of expertise. It is definitely good to see they are talking to the right people!
There's more math involved in filmmaking than most people realize but more on the technical side than the artistic side. Everything from film finance to focal length of a lens; lighting and electrical has some degree of math involved.
One interesting thing that A Beautiful Mind did get right is that 90% of hallucinations are auditory-only, and visual ones almost always start as auditory. Any time one of his hallucination characters appear, they're always heard off-screen first; they call out to him and then the camera turns and we see them.
I’m not mathematician but if they displayed math “perfectly accurately” wouldn’t that earn a 10/10 lol.
It's Common Core Math.
no cos 10/10 is just 1
he is a college professor, we know college professor never give the highest scores
Because it wasn't ambitious math
He's judging the films on a subjective scale. Accuracy is only part of the issue.
It’s been 10 seconds and I already like this guy
It’s been 10 seconds, and I’m already confused.
Haha I went through the same thing
I mean I totally love these "An expert rates different movie scenes regarding their field of expertise"-videos, but an expert saying that a movie scene is inaccurate and HE IS IN THE SCENE HIMSELF blows my mind. Even though I work in media and worked on fictional movies and understand how this stuff happens, it still blows my mind. Incredible :D
He says it's cos probably they edited some bits together. What's so weird about it?
@@diabl2master come on man‚ obviously they just mean it’s a novelty for them
LOVE this guy. With all his hyperactive energy and passion he kind of reminds me of Richard Dreyfus in Jaws.
Loved this - part 2 please!
The most ridiculous thing about the Good Will Hunting scene was the students. No one in lectures was that bright-eyed & bushy-tailed, so raptly attentive, or so prim, proper or chipper. And the students weren’t all so homogeneous. I rate that scene an i/10 [sic]
"i/10" 🤣😆🤣😆🤣 So true. As if math students were as ambitious and cutthroat as law students.
i/10… suddenly a whole new dimension comes out
Such a lovely video. Thank you for this! Simply, a learned something new :)
Loved this video, the topic, the guy giving his opinion, the movies/scenes that they picked, excellent combination.
It was very interesting to listen to this professor talking in a foreign language
Loved this so much! Can you do another one that covers math in high school movies? It's always so random!
Just want to say that this is easily the best video in the series so far, and the best series of its variety that I have ever seen. These are great videos, Penguin Books, please keep this up!
Jill Clayburgh teaches the Snake Lemma in It's My Turn. My algebra professor showed this scene as he was beginning his lecture on it.
@4:00 Additionally, at some point in the movie, when Max is explaining what the golden ratio is to Lenny Mayer, Max says that the golden ratio is represented by the greek letter Theta, when in fact, it is represented by Phi.
Very pleased to see Penguin UK breakdown a core academic subject like this. Bravo! Also great plug by Jordan to describe why we still need math ans math education today. Should a teaching scenes breakdown be next??
Took number theory from Prof. Ellenberg at Princeton as a freshman in 2008. Great lecturer, awesome dude!
Love this video. I enjoyed Jordan's book How Not to Be Wrong. I need to read it again I think.
Well... you're not wrong...
Pythagorean formula for Exp.[W%] is used all the time to estimate value added from RunCreation (hitting) or RunPrevention (fielding & especially pitching). BUT, exponent that makes the formula fit best is 1.89 +/- a bit . . . which depends on season and some park affects.
3:23-3:44 thinking of '90s drum and bass differently from now on
Word!
There's also a super brief moment with some impressively good math in season 2 of I Think You Should Leave! It flashes on the screen for a second during the Capital Room sketch.
Does this guy has his own channel? I'm only 3 minutes in and already a big fan!
7:34 off topic, I love the this will destroy you song. Its really good
I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about but I absolutely love how excited he is. ❤
McKenna Grace is quite literally gifted in anything. Doing college already, plays a dozen instruments, is an amazingly skilled actress, can apparently sing now too and that she memorized the stuff in the movie Gifted proved that even more.
I wondered what he thinks of the CBS show Numb3rs. That had mathematician advisors and was reported to be well received by other mathematicians.
Yes, they did a good job on that show.
Proud to say that I knew about a few things he talked about. Unfortunately I'm not going any further than that in mathematics haha.
I don't know much math. But I love that Professor Ellenberg said "One of the best functions." It sounds like something that I would say. Best function! 10/10.
It’s too bad that Good Will Hunting couldn’t get the math right. It’s a great movie. I would be interesting if there was some theory that we still haven’t proven to this day and Will managed to prove it over a weekend. I think if you are like me and didn’t even pay much attention to what was on the blackboard you would have liked the movie.
I agree. They should've given him the Poincaré Conjecture. Difficult to prove, but not impossible, and proper level for grad students to understand (it's since been proved). Or the four color theorem, easier for the audience (color a map with only four colors and don't have adjacent colors be the same). Also since ben proved. Btw, the equation on the black board in the hall isn't well shown here, and it's an actual problem, however, easy enough for advanced high schoolers to solve using logic, as opposed to matrix calc. Mathologer has a video about it.
There actually was a guy named George Dantzig who solved two open problems in statistical theory, which he had mistaken for homework after arriving late to a lecture
I think Good Will Hunting was a decent movie ruined by being written by idiots. Like that cringe scene when the two guys are having a "battle of the brains" in the bar. But its just complete piffle. A smart person could have written a smart conversation.
No lie, I did. And in my freshman year of high school I would write the theories from that movie or A Beautiful Mind on the board when my class or teacher was bored and they actually thought I was doing something very college academic and started looking to me for help. It wasn’t until I told them, “Did you not see the movie?”, that they started to realize that it wasn’t actual math.
@@High_Priest_Jonko If you think a movie like Good Will Hunting is just "decent" I don't think you have any right to call other people idiots
The Fermat Theorem counter example works on pockets calculators which are only accurate to 8 digits.
Loved the movie Gifted! On the first watch I did a double take when I saw Jordan in it haha
If another video is made, I would love to see 'Stand and Deliver' looked at.
Pi is one of the best movies ever made and quite possibly the best soundtrack ever!
Clint Mansell soundtrack. Moon film ost is right up there too
@@Justin-kv8iy is that the movie with one actor being stuck on a moon base??
@@AntonAdelson yep. With a twist, but yep. Directed by Duncan Jones, aka Zowie Bowie
Kudos for including Pi, an underrated movie with an amazing soundtrack!
Amen Breakbeat + Maths= The essence of life.❤❤
Honestly, I can't even understand the math they're teaching my kids in school these days. It's completely different than what I learned. This was great
You should look at the scene in Beautiful mind where nash is a professor and writes the hard problem on the blackboard.
Penguin Books branching into KZhead videos sounds like a joke from Bojack Horseman...
Actually, the sum of those numbers on the 12th power is almost equal to the number on the right. They differ only in their 11th digit, which is amazing.
This guy is ruthless. Love it!
I would love to hear his opinion on the mathematics in Hidden Figures.
The explanations of chaos theory in Jurassic Park the book are tons better than how it's presented in the movie. At least in my opinion
Michael Crichton's attempts at scientific explanations in multiple of his books are incredibly painful though, he generally takes a vague but currently popular scientific idea and builds a huge pile of ridiculous ideas on top of it. It can make fairly interesting novels but the science is horrible.
I'm a maths teacher so I was trying to basically spot any of the issues as you were talking through them. I do love good will hunting but the maths is pretty poor.
I would have liked to have seen the movie stills held on screen for longer while Jordan was talking, but I enjoyed this video.
I used to love maths. This guy has all my respect.
Why did you lose the love?
@@huawafabe enough maths drives you insane
I think something that was missed by almost everyone is that the very final question the girl asks in Pi is 'what is 748 divided by 238'. This is the familiar 22/7 approximation of pi with both numerator and denominator multiplied by 34. Either the film maker getting in a final secret plug for the star constant, or more darkly, too much of a coincidence and an indication that drilling his head didn't work and he is only imagining he woke up back in the real world. When in actual fact he is still unconscious/dying and his sub-conscious is still fixated on Pi.
Yes! Loved that you pointed out the soundtrack, it was sick! I need to find out what it is
10:24 Yes they have advisors, but they often dont listen to them/ignore them/alter what they said to do etc.
3:50 i think i just had a stroke 🫠
I'd like to see you break down Scott Steiner's math promo
11:22 right after in the same scene the guy goes on to say: _‘...the functor is in the two categories,’_ which is pretty irritating too. And Russell Crowe goes: ‘mm-hmm!’ 😆😆😆
maybe they mean in the "2-categories" kekw
A prof just nodding along to a grad student saying dumb things doesn't seem far-fetched to me. :D
This was great...interesting, lively, fun. Someone posted they would like to have the TV show "Numbers" evaluated; and I'd love to have Jordan review a few clips from "The Big Bang Theory" ("Would you like to do the math?" "Yes, I think I would like to do the math.")
I was surprised at how good Gifted was. Highly recommend.
I'd be curious to see what he thinks about 21, X+Y (aka A Brilliant Young Mind), and Matthew Broderick's Feynmann.
He actually missed the point of the less than and greater than sign in the Simpsons example. In general relativity, Omega is the density parameter, which is the ratio of the energy density of the universe to the critical energy density. If this parameter is greater than one, the Einstein Field Equations predict a perpetually expanding ("blowing up"!) Universe.
This was very interesting.
The golden ratio, Fibonacci sequence, an interesting thing but not as ubiquitous as some folk make out. Anyway good video, and cool that you were in one of them.
How do you do this and not include the Snake Lemma scene from It's My Turn?
Idk who’s idea was this to have penguin authors host these series, but it’s genius. Kudos.
For the Good Will Hunting part, I wish Jordan was shown the part where Will solved the graph theory problem on the board.
4:44 Is Jordan saying he doesn't believe that Da Vinci was interested in the Golden Ratio? I can't see anything about that online.
Would love to see Prof Ellenberg break down the Imitation Game.
Loved the vid. Pleased that Gifted is mostly accurate! :-)
I'm pretty sure the equation Homer changes the inequality of is the FRW-derived expansion rate of the universe. There's an H_0 in there, which is Hubble's Constant, and the sign of Omega relates to the combination of factors that impacts universal space-time curvature and/or expansion. If less than 1 you have a closed universe, equal to 1 gives a flat universe and above 1 gives a negative curvature open universe. I might have got some of that wrong, it's been 14 years since I last ran a numerical model involving dark energy and my last 30s brain has replaced it with information I use more regularly, like how to change a tyre or the call outs for Vault of Glass in Destiny.
Also, re "A Beautiful Mind," I know from folks who work at Princeton University, and from meeting John Nash a couple of times . . . that well, let's say Ron Howard's priority was delivering an enjoyable, understandable story. Absolute accuracy was a bit lower on the list.
And rightly so. Howard is telling a story, not making an historically accurate documentary, I believe. And the focus must thus be about the human response to life, triumphs and vicissitudes. This is a form he has mastered through so many projects. For me they are always compelling and expertly crafted.
Well, they needed to keep Nash likable. So they made his disease into some kind of magical curse.
1) He didn't explain the math joke in the Simpsons at all. You see, at that time most calculators would display numbers to such a number of decimal places that it told you that the equation Homer wrote holds. There were really some people who noticed it, put it in the calculator and since the proof of Fermat's theorem had already been recognized and was a BIG deal they were like: What the f**k is going on? 2) He has obviously never seen Jeff Goldblum in TV shows etc. He didn't have to act at all, he's even more math-weird in real life :D
I don't know how many digits your calculator has but 4472^12 is pretty big, over 40 digits long, so I'm going to suggest that wasn't the idea of this joke.
@@mattc3581 l was thinking the same. Even current calculators don't display near enough digits. (Regular off the shelf scientific calculators or apps that is).
@@mattc3581 Yes, that would be far too large for a basic calculator.
@1:32 - Doesn't Homer replace the "greater than" sign with a "less than" sign?
Yep, oh the irony! (Unless the footage we see has been mirrored).
@@XCM666 Can't be mirrored, else the t(0) will look back to front.
Need a part 2 reacting to the confused math lady meme 😂
At 1:28 he actually replaces a *greater than sign* with a *less than sign*
How in the world does he have such an interest in and grasp of sabermetrics, but has never seen moneyball?
Because a lot of Sabermetric folks were rather hesitant to watch it, assuming that Hollywood would screw it up. Which is funny, because the things they actually messed up were the basic timeline and baseball stuff.
Not everyone watches movies
Please correct the statement at 1:29 to 1:31. He replaces a "greater than" sign for a "less than" sign and not the other way as stated in the video. Also, at 12:38 tp 12:42; I hear: "For N to be congruent to four mod five,; the answer is a multiple of five." The mistake mentioned at 12:52 is not on the video.
This is missing the greatest maths scene in TV/Movie history... Season 1 Finale of Silicon Valley!
i love that comment about the US Military being like 'get me that butterfly' lol so emblematic of a powerful figure/institution trying to co-opt something they don't understand
That's the danger of explaining math using metaphors. I spent years believing the Pigeon Hole principle is a lot simpler than what it really says
Nice video 👍💐🌹
As a child i wanted to be a mathematician or a game artist. I kept being told mathematician wasnt a real job and id never make it in the gameart world that eventually i just gave up. Mostly cause i couldnt afford college and stuff by myself when my mother refused to pay. So now i just toil away at a job i dont really like. Getting paid a little bit over 15$ and doing art on the side. Wish i could go back and encourage younger me and tell myself what i needed in order to be able to do what i actually wanted. Envourage your kids to pursue their dreams, they can always do a job they dont like as nuch if they fail, but its so much harder trying to reach what you love after you're stuck
Should have recused maybe for the last one? But great comments on the rest:)
This guy should have a show. Charming, funny, smart. But what about the film Proof?!
I'm surprised he didn't do any scenes from Hidden Figures. Especially the scene where Kevin Costner hands Taraji Henson the chalk and she does the calculations regarding landing the capsule in front of all the bigwigs at the meeting.
10:10 the first line is just an affine variety or something. The second line is some kind of L-function? N hat as in a completed norm and d the index of ideal q?
I would like to hear your thoughts on the movie Proof (2005).
I'm hoping you talked about the topology joke in the first Simpson's clip! Torus + bite -> Sphere! Maybe they cut that out?
Haha. 15 seconds in and I love it already.
In good will hunting I believe the professor had already proved the Theorem he was just using it as to see which of the students could figured it out as well
Is this Alternate Reality Amir Blumenfeld? (But seriously, great vid)
Hi Jordan! I'm surprised you didn't mention the best depiction ever, Jill Clayburgh's proving the snake lemma in front of a snotty grad student. kzhead.info/sun/lLx7frSiqaiuYIE/bejne.html Last I saw there was still a picture of here in the Princeton math mailroom (from when she came to practice with Nick Katz).
The GOAT of mathematics scenes in movies. Nothing else is even close.
Credit to Dick Gross. Best math scene ever.
1:27 I ain't no mathematician but I'm pretty sure Homer replaces the greater than sign with the less than sign, not the other way around...🤷♂
The Adjacency problem or matrix is way easier than how it is presented in the film. The branches aren’t really that difficult to figure out
D'yall watch that video where it shows the Golden Ration is not, in fact, everywhere in nature?
Can someone share the music that was playing in the pie movie
I love Penguin UK exclusives.
I was in this film! I made a mistake! 9/10 Lol
3:28 "I just want to speak to the soundtrack" can anyone explain to me what that means?
Hi Steve, the phrase “speak to” just means he wants to address the thing. So he wants to speak to the soundtrack, meaning he wants to talk about the soundtrack. Or address the soundtrack. From google: Def. “Speak to” [for something] to address, indicate, or signal something.
@@MrBANANAS1235 I hear people using it a lot, it's obvious from context, but I really dislike it. It sounds wanky.