HASHTAG - H

Since the third part of the series did a huge turn towards Europe, Marcus Sautoy then continued to scour the European continent in search of the remnants from the golden age for mathematics. 

In this said “golden age” were the infamous 23 important mathematical questions David Hilbert introduced to challenge the up and coming 21^st century mathematics to build structural mathematical principles for the modern maths. This I think is a very logical way to start the journey which the last part of the series sought to answer - the concept of infinity.

In the film, a lot of famous people were mentioned to emphasize who dared battle the 23 questions. Then again, there were those who consciously gave up on it. Stated also were the geniuses who contributed a lot to the realization of the infinite series.

One thing admirable about the film was Kurt Godel issue which shattered the dreams of the Hilbert questions. He has been a very strong water-loo for the whole mathematics stronghold but on the latter, became a very intellectual piece for the strengthening the essence of math once again.

Further, aside from the complete dominance of male mathematicians throughout history, it is amazing to have heard great things from the women’s league. Especially to have known the first president of the American Mathematical Society, Julia Robinson was a great standing point for us especially to make us realize that women are equally brilliant in math like men (BUT MEN SHALL PREVAIL! :P).

Lastly, the realization to the possibility of Hilbert’s 10^th question was the most intriguing part of the film which considered Robinson’s theory and the person who capture the famous Fibonacci sequence of numbers and solved the 10^th question at 22 years old.

The whole 4-part series was a great bummer to have ended. It was the only documentary to have really captured the history of maths and how math evolved to be the universal language that everyone could understand. This film really makes its viewers realize how really unimaginable this world could be without mathematics aiding us. And also how math could have been established if not for those brilliant minds who devoted their time and effort to the realization of math’s pillars.

Marcus, the speaker, being a mathematician himself really gave justice to what he and the film wants to offer to its audience – another way to appreciate math. I am guessing that every one of us needed a new perspective when approaching math (unless you are a mathematician yourself) and this film sure knows the alternative. A big hooray for all the people behind this film and I could not have asked for anything better than this unless future people could come up with a sci-fi 3D film about math then that would be really amazing beyond reason. 

HASHTAG - T

            In this new chapter about math’s history, the flow of realizing Math’s past has come to a new direct turn towards Europe. It is amusing for me to have not known all these years any of the mentioned people in this 3^rd part of the documentary series except for Newton. As I’ve told you in the past two reviews, I don’t dig math and math feels totally the same for me. We mutually hate each other at a very special way. However, this long trip to Europe proved to be worthwhile to understand and appreciate.

Note: Again, I don’t do spoilers, I critique just like any other reviews.

            Sautoy never failed to have pulled strings on me and let me pick unusual sides of the table (I swear it is not a circular one). I’ve got five points to point out right now so I am on a roll actually. Might as well enjoy wasting your time reading this eh? J

            First point, Pierre della Francesca. If some of you already know him, then you’re either an artist or just a really bored person. Nonetheless, this certain Pierre was featured in the film having been addressed as the painter of the infamous “The Flagellation of Christ” – a painting that surpassed the norms and ended up on Math’s history. That was a real shocker. However, as convincing as Sautoy was on the previous episodes, I’d bet you’d really adore Pierre after all the explanations and change of perspective mentioned on how 3D embosses from 2D to create a specific harmony.

            Second point, Sautoy’s stand on Decartes. I mean seriously, who would love a selfish bastard. And the real kicker is that he dreams and think math while sleeping. Now that is purely WOW. LIKE WOW, SUCH WOW. With that, I really rest my case on Decartes. I mean who’d want to argue with such awesomeness. But seriously, aside from giving Decartes a big round of applause for the ever useful Cartesian plain, the film really nurtured his image. He became a hero both for algebra and geometry there which would really make you go all drooling (a not so clever metaphor) on him. And also, the “he doesn’t believe the sun revolves around the earth” might get you there very fast on the liking-Decartes stage.

            Third point, how disturbingly funny the camels were for Sautoy. Now this part is what I call a no-brainer in the documentary. Mersenne: Parisian monk, God-fearing and Math loving, solves problems while praying, what’s there not to like about this cute person whose idea of “FUN TIME” is actually “M-A-T-H--P-R-O-B-L-E-M-S”? Tell me people! But nevertheless, Marcus really had a “FUN TIME” on the festival and the details on this part of the documentary if not flashy then I’d say, were fast paced for some reason I don’t know.

            Fourth point, the Newton-Leibniz couples fight. Isn’t it sweet for two people to argue for the rights to claim Calculus? That’s CALCULUS PEOPLE! Shame on you for not even saying a word ‘cause I know you love calculus for the same reason that you awkwardly like to compute the rate of water flowing out of the faucet and filling the bucket. In this part of the documentary, I observed the words were bold and direct to the point. This part really made strong points but I would not be a bother to choose any of the sides. I really don’t care that much at all (and I’d still feel the same even if both of them are still alive right now and arguing). Also, Sautoy clearly made a specific call for the matter on which side he was on and that I think is a discrepancy on how he will be biased on whenever he encounters Physics. That I think is not necessary because being a scientist or fore say being a mathematician, we have to be the rational ones and we must not prefer to one side unless it’s a do or die situation. Hahahaha J

            Last point, the other big shots. On the halfway part all through the end, a lot of people were still continually introduced. Marcus went through the Bernoullis – Leibniz’s trusted supporters, Leonhard Euler – the one with a school, Gausse – the shy imaginary numbers guy, Bolyai – the father of Hyperbolioc Geometry and Riemann – the lecturer on the Foundations of Geometry. All these people highlighted by Marcus were all awesome but for some unexplainable reasons, I believe I don’t have to discuss them and you must meet them yourselves.

            I believe the frontiers of space were structurally built in this episode of the 4-part of the documentary. There must have been a lot of people mentioned but this chapter holds the real Golden Age for mathematics and you people would never notice to have loved math instantly after watching the documentary series this far. We are approaching the last destination and this ride has been the most interesting so far. This is a worthwhile watch and I hope the fourth one would be a good finale :)

HASHTAG - A

(A Movie Review on "The Story of Maths" Second Installment)

            While I was looking for details that are interesting in the second installment of the documentary “The Story of Maths”, I was overwhelmed when I couldn’t even count the things I acknowledged as interesting. With this, I’ll present three points that hopefully would get good reads and would encourage people to watch this documentary because I believe I haven’t oversold it on my first review and hey, I gave this all my best to give you a good review on the documentary J.

          First point: THIS EAST IT!

          Well, aside from the point being a nonsense pun, what I am referring to is the ingenuity of the people from the east. The main revolving point of the second installment was of the geniuses of the east and boy! They are amazing! It’s saddening that eastern people aren’t literally credited for great advancements in the realization of the whole mathematics as a language. As a matter of fact, according to the documentary (Yes people, I am giving away spoilers, but I promise only a few), the idea of the numbers we use today first emerged from the eastern part of the globe. Not to be dividing-the-world-into-two-cist but I am from the east and I could’ve never been proud to know that a lot of contributions were from the great eastern minds. And as much as I don’t want to stretch this topic to the point of “hey, touché” but seriously! I am so psyched with this information which I would not even have the shadow of interest if not for this documentary. So with that, I’d say, hooray for this part of the quad-ology!

          Second point: SCIENCE AND MAGIC.

          Actually, the legendary affinity of mathematics to science is thoroughly discussed on the third and fourth installments (and mind you that magic is just a simile there). However, this part of the 4-part series is starting to hone up our imaginations on how vast the effect of mathematics is in terms of applications and explanations on how the universe work. By science, I mean how the early eastern people managed to explain activities of the heavenly bodies with the help of math. In the era where intuition is an asset, people have been very questioning of everything that is happening (SPOILER ALERT!) just like when the Indian mathematicians flourished trigonometry to explain distance of the moon and sun from earth. Thus, science began to partner up with mathematics to give answers and additional questions. Now if for some unknown reason you are asking why I even included magic in my point, then I’d like to stress that magic for me are the things that mathematics disprove and proves to be provable. The defining of succession series and power of arithmetic pattern by the early Chinese mathematicians really did a leap on the understanding of certain “magics” in the society and that I guess is one detail that shouldn’t be missed in this episode.

          Third point: ZERO’S HERO

          Have I told you I would really love to migrate to India right now aside from the fact that I’d add up to their great population. It must be wonderful to be a citizen of the city where a lot of historical events happened (oh, and have I mentioned Bollywood movies are soooo great too :D). And one of the many promising events from India in terms of mathematics except for their help with the HINDU-arabic (self-explanatory) is the realization of the value 0 which they coherently got from the concept of nothingness. I just don’t get how their early mathematicians were thinking for coming up with the value zero for literally nothing and devising its properties and that is a must see in the documentary. I can’t stress much on this anymore because by then I’d be spoiling one of the most important stops on the episode but I am pretty sure you’ll be astonished with the awesomeness as I was.

          Having to end this review, I’d suggest you’d want to have earphones or headsets while watching the documentary (and some popcorn or bagels would do) because this episode is kind of whimsical and words just keep spurting out of the speaker (the google famous guy) and you would not want to miss on the important facts! Again, arrangement of the facts were neat and anti-boring so it’s a good waste of time. Lastly, I’d suggest you start losing those unresolved issues with mathematics ‘cause I know you’ll re-marry math by the end of this series installment. And I am really pressured on leaving very catchy words but hey, I’d guess “Trust me when I say it’s good!” is enough. 

HASHTAG - M

 (A Movie Review on "The Story of Maths" First Installment)

       There is no easy way to start a film review on a documentary which is all about mathematics given the fact that I haven’t even got to the point of loving the concept of mathematics itself. Honestly, it was a distress to even aggregate beautiful and conceptually complex words and sentences just to prove a point in where I stand or if I love or hated the first part of the documentary.

          Or then again, maybe it was not troublesome after all.

          As any of us would say, revisiting the past is an awesome blah blah blah and then the rest will just blur out. I’d say, revisiting the past is not all that awesome and considering that the film did not just revisit the past but revisited MATH’S past did not quite help on reassuring us a good time. However, the film maybe had had an awesomely-telepathic-magic-shenanigan (that we don’t know of) which captures attention especially when you watch it by yourself repeatedly until you became interested really and started watching the other three parts. I mean like seriously, this one must have been pulling strings since I don’t usually dig math and I don’t usually dig documentaries for that matter. And then I realized that maybe it was all in the content or maybe it was not the content but the unbelievable drive of passion.

          If it was the content, then I really don’t know how summarizing the documentary would be of any great help since this film review was supposed to assert and evaluate the documentary and not give spoilers you know (Yeah, I got your back!). Going back, if it was the content, then I’d say the facts were neatly ordered and were specially chosen so that even without an interested-tone-of–voice from the speaker, the audience would still be awed because it is always amazing when you learn something you never even had the remorse to inquire about ever existed or could be explained. I mean maybe in a 1/1000 people, one would be really like “hey! Did you know how the ancient Egyptians learned how to count? It started with blah blah blah – again, the rest would be a blur” and that I guess is a true scenario. So given that the film really did a great job on how to present for-old-people interesting facts and modernized it so teenagers could ingest it, then the cast and producers would deserve a slow magnificent clap *gestures slow clap*.

          If for some I-really-don’t-know reason that it was the unbelievable drive of passion of the speaker in the film that was giving off attraction hormones on our attention and brains, then I’d give up saying anything and will just give them an official offering or tribute especially to the mathematician speaker Mr. Marcus du Sautoy (he is famous, he is Google famous!) with a kneeling and bowing combo. I mean really, it is incredible to even document a mathematician’s drive on knowing the history of what he called his profession. I mean that is pretty common on scientists since they are really into revisiting old stuff but hey, mathematicians? Who would have known! Because as every layman’s opinion, the common stereotype of a mathematician would be antisocial and boxed people. Antisocial in a good way and boxed in an awkwardly-awkward way where they just fix their deductions on what was bound by their theories and equations. Boxed people would tend not to dig deeper and “past-er” because that would be out of their comfort zone, but then again, I stand corrected. Some people just got that awesome drive and I’d give them a moment of silence and a series of pure awesome marching bands as a salute.

       

          If I were asked to recommend this to random people, then I’d gladly do it because I know they would not hate me for it. It is one awesome documentary of the history of mathematics and I am just reviewing for the first installment only, not yet the totality of it so it’s just like multiplying awesomeness by itself four times. And if I were to suggest anything, then I’d suggest to the director to not have anything changed because first, if the director or the scriptwriter would want to add more details or facts, then the documentary would be dragging and become a drama series that is out of budget and then the awesomeness meter would drop significantly and second, it they would want to present the facts in a more jolly way with great smiles and love, then I would not even bother watching it because they’d be clearly making a kids show.

          That’s it for the review and as much as I’d like to leave a few very intelligent words to make up a very sophisticated phrase, unfortunately I am no good with that so I’d just rest my case by saying “One does not simply juxtapose mathematics and awesomeness, but this documentary is worth the doubt”.