

Mathematics in Movies - fachoper
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/

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tzs
Since they are including TV shows, how could they have missed Futurama?
Episode 6ACV10, "The Prisoner of Benda" involved a machine that could swap the
minds of two people. However, it turned out a given pair could only be swapped
once. So if A and B swapped, and then wanted to swap back, they could not just
use the machine together again. They would need to find some intermediate
bodies to swap through--but then those people might no longer all be in the
right bodies, and they would need to find some intermediaries, and so on.
Thus, the question arose if, given a group of people who have done assorted
swaps, is it always possible, with the help of a finite number of volunteers,
to get everyone back to their original body and also leave the volunteers in
their original bodies? And if so, how many volunteers do you need?

The Harlem Globetrotters are called in to help, and they prove that any group
of swapped people can be restored to their bodies with the help of two
volunteers. Their proof of this appears on a blackboard in the episode, and it
is fact a correct proof.

Furthermore, not only is it correct, it was a new result, proved by Futurama
writer Ken Keeler (who has a PhD in mathematics). This is, as far as anyone as
been able to determine, the first and only time that a new theorem has been
first published as part of a TV show.

Details, including the theorem and proof, here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner_of_Benda](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner_of_Benda)

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gizmo686
I haven't dug into the proof to deeply, but that does not seem like something
that would be that difficult to prove. It seems more like Keeler simply put
mathematically correct writing into the show, and that math happens to be
something that no one has bothered to formally show. Not to say that it is not
an impressive level of detail to put into a cartoon, but the fact that it was
first published in the show only shows that it is not a difficult or
interesting result.

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anonymfus
"Blackboards in porn":
[http://blackboardsinporn.blogspot.com/](http://blackboardsinporn.blogspot.com/)

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nate_martin
I'm kind of surprised this list doesn't include Darren Aronofsky's "Pi". The
film touches on a lot of interesting topics such as digit repetition in pi,
financial market machine learning, fibonacci spirals and number theory.

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icebraining
It does:
[http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/swf/pi_pattern...](http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/swf/pi_patterns.html)

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mostafaberg
I was just going to say the same thing then caught your link, thanks for the
catch ;)

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wslh
For a nice anecdote from Leonard Adleman about his contribution to Sneakers
see [http://www.usc.edu/dept/molecular-science/fm-
sneakers.htm](http://www.usc.edu/dept/molecular-science/fm-sneakers.htm)

~~~
vezzy-fnord
I found Sneakers a little disappointing.

Don't get me wrong, it was a pretty decent 90s thriller. Very charming. But
the way it was described made it out to be as if it portrayed complex
cryptographic and technical concepts.

All I really saw was an anagram and some idealized substitution cipher. Fun
film, misleading summary.

~~~
wslh
But Adleman, the scientist behind the assessment, is one of the most prominent
cryptographers and number theorists.

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sytelus
Nice collection. I wanted to add many of these movies in my Netflix queue and
found this handy bookmarklet called Cue That
[http://www.cuethat.com/](http://www.cuethat.com/). You can select movie title
and add it in Netflix queue quickly.

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Walkman
The best math related TV series is Numb3rs:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433309/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433309/)

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fredzed
The Mathematical movie database -
[http://www.qedcat.com/moviemath/index.html](http://www.qedcat.com/moviemath/index.html)

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ygra
Would be nice if each one of these would include some commentary whether the
math is in fact sensible and/or correct.

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pliny
Is the error from A Serious Man that he wrote

<p^2> \- <p^2> and not

<p^2> \- <p>^2?

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Hengjie
I hope they don't send this site DCMA letters.

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yeukhon
I love Suspect. It's a Japanese drama.

