END OF INFINITY

END OF INFINITY

                Honestly speaking, the first three episodes of “The Story of Maths” seemed distant and somewhat irrelevant since they were either ancient history or futuristic mumbojumbo concepts. Almost everything from those three episodes was foreign to me, I mean, they happened so long ago and not anywhere near here. But this fourth episode was different somehow, I can’t explain it but it felt “real”.

                Weird right? The episode that dealt with “infinity and beyond”, intangible concepts, actually felt more “real” than those about practical mathematics. Why? I don’t know… maybe because it was something I wanted to know? Maybe because it actually happened within this century? Maybe because the documentary actually aimed to brainwash students like us to pursue “INFINITY AND BEYOND”? most likely, all of the above… and other still unexplainable reasons.

                This episode was an improvement from the third, I wasn’t sleepy most of the time and it actually got my attention on many scenes. Like with Cantor, “Mr. Infinity”, who else would think to make math harder by adding unattainable numbers? And it wasn’t even just one, but INFINITE INFINITIES. That may have explained why he was in a looney bin (no offense). Or was it Hilbert? Anyway both of them added infinities to math, so we should blame them both. There was also that Russian mathematician who became a weird recluse, I could barely believe that he was still alive (mainly because the documentary seemed to tackle old stuff). Ah, that statement about there being no unsolvable puzzles, and that only God can comprehend everything (or something similar), was my favorite from all the episodes. It felt meaningful to me.

                There wasn’t much to remember in that episode, mostly about fleeing form nazis and war time maths. I don’t remember the ending too much… I think it summarized everything, but I don’t remember how or in what way. The four films were fun to watch but I honestly think that they were for one-time viewing only (unless you actually want to feel bored). To sum up my report, I would like to quote a well known figure from my childhood:

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND. – BUZZ LIGHTYEAR