Beauty of Mathematics
While posting videos is not something I do very often at this blog. I came across this one particular documentary film that really struck me. It’s called Dangerous Knowledge and it’s about four thinkers — Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing who destroyed any hopes we would ever have for certainty in knowledge. The film is especially powerful to me right now as I have for weeks been obsessing with the limits of knowledge, undoubtedly to unhealthy levels. This film does not tell me anything new of course, but it presents it in a light that shows how very deep these problems were to these great mathematicians. The commentary for the documentary was also well chosen — Gregory Chaitin and Roger Penrose among those talking. At one point I was almost reduced to tears by the beauty that was hinted at.
Man, I fuckin hate dramatic reconstructions.
G
September 6, 2007 at 11:58 am
No doubt it is a dramatic reconstruction, but I suppose what’s good is that it tries to share the sense of excitement that’s around mathematics, something popular culture tries to label as boring and arcane.
Also, the lives of these men really were quite ‘dramatic’, spending much time in sanatoriums or being persecuted.
jasonmc
September 6, 2007 at 2:48 pm