I can still add and subtract. And multiply. Though I’m not too sure about division anymore. This is a movie about math and I am more or less lost when it comes to anything beyond, well, arithmetic. But then most of us are, right?
On the other hand, mathematicians have often been portrayed as being rather deficient regarding most everything else.
In any event, I’ve always been more intrigued by the things in which there seem to be no “proofs”.
Catherine. Is she crazy? How do we prove it? Some people are so far out in left field it just makes sense to try to pull them back in. But others are out there for a perfectly good reason and fuck those meddlesome “members of the family” ever intent on saving them. From themselves in other words. I like wackos myself. The kind that know the difference between being and not being too far gone. The truly self-contained iconoclasts.
And what can we prove today about going insane?
IMDb
The plot of the original play was based on the life of John Nash, professor at Princeton, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in game theory and also spent many years suffering from schizophrenia. His story was later adapted into A Beautiful Mind.
wiki
[b]Since 1993 (when Andrew Wiles first claimed to have proven Fermat’s Last Theorem), there have been several feature films about mathematicians, notably Good Will Hunting (1997), A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Proof (2005).
The mathematician Daniel Ullman says: “Of these three films, Proof is the one that most realistically illustrates the world of mathematics and mathematicians.” Timothy Gowers of the University of Cambridge, a Fields Medalist, acted as mathematical consultant, but Ullman praises the director too: “Madden should be credited with capturing the feeling of the mathematical world.”[/b]
{PROOF}
Directed by John Madden
[b]Robert: I hope you’re not spending your birthday alone.
Catherine: I’m not alone.
Robert: I don’t count.
Catherine: Why not?
Robert: I’m your old man. Go out with friends.
Catherine: Yeah, right.
Robert: Aren’t your friends taking you out?
Catherine: Nope.
Robert: Why not?
Catherine: For your friends to take you out, you generally have to have friends.
…
Catherine: Wait.
Robert: What’s the matter?
Catherine: It doesn’t make sense.
Robert: Sure it does.
Catherine: No.
Robert: Where’s the problem?
Catherine: The problem is, you are crazy.
Robert: So?
Catherine: So you said a crazy person would never admit that.
Robert: Ah. I see.
Catherine: So?
Robert: It’s a point.
Catherine: So how can you admit it?
Robert: Well because, I’m also dead.
…
Hal: Some friends of mine are in this band. They’re playing in a bar on Diversey. They’re good. They have this song called “i.” You’d like it. Lowercase i. They just stand there. They don’t play anything for three minutes.
…
Catherine [to her well meaning but hopelessly officious sister]: I’m fine, you know. I’m totally fine. And then you show up here with these questions. Like, “Are you OK?” with that soothing tone of voice. And…Oh. The poor policemen. I think the policemen can handle themselves. And bagels and bananas and jojoba. And “Come to New York.” And vegetarian chili! I mean, it really pisses me off, so just save it.[/b]
I hear that!!
[b]Catherine [at the church service before her father is buried]: Wow. I can’t believe how many people are here. I never knew he had this many friends. Where have you all been for the last five years? I guess to you guys he was already dead, right? I mean, what’s a great man without his greatness? Just some old guy. So you probably wanna catch up on what you missed out on. Um… He used to read all day. He kept demanding more and more books. I was getting them out of the library by the carload. There were hundreds. And then one day I realized he wasn’t reading. He believed aliens were sending him messages through the Dewey decimal numbers in the books. He was trying to work out the code. He used to shuffle around in his slippers. He talked to himself. He stank. I had to make sure he bathed, which was embarrassing. Then he started writing 19, 20 hours a day. I got him this huge case of notebooks. He used every one. I dropped out of school. You see, he was convinced that he was writing the most beautiful, elegant proofs. Proofs like music. I’m glad he’s dead.
…
Hal: You sure read a lot of math books.
…
Catherine: I didn’t find it.
Hal: Yes, you did.
Catherine: No, I didn’t
Hal: You didn’t find it?
Catherine: I didn’t find it. I wrote it.
…
Hal: I know how hard it would be to come up with something like this. You’d have to be your dad at the peak of his powers.
Catherine: Just because you and the rest of the geeks worshipped him does not mean he wrote the proof.
Hal: He was the best. My generation hasn’t produced anything like him. He revolutionized the field twice before he was 22. I am sorry. It’s too advanced. I don’t even understand most of it.
Catherine: You think it’s too advanced?
Hal: Yes.
Catherine: It’s too advanced for you.
Hal: You could not have done this work.
Catherine: But what if I did?
Hal: Well, what if?
Catherine: It would be a real disaster for you. Wouldn’t it? You and the other geeks who barely finished their PhD’s, who are marking time doing lame research, bragging about the conferences they go to. Wow. Playing in an awful band and whining that they’re intellectually past it at 26, because they are!
…
Catherine: Am I on that list?
Claire: What?
Catherine: “Square away crazy sister.” Check.
…
Catherine: Dad, I think we should get some sleep.
Robert: Not until we talk about the proof!
Catherine: I don’t want to talk about it.
Robert: Goddammit, open the goddamn book! Read me the lines!
Catherine: [reading from Robert’s Notebook] “Let X equal the quantity of all quantities of X. Let X equal the cold. It is cold in December. The months of cold equal November through February. There are four months of cold, and four of heat, leaving four months of indeterminate temperature. In February it snows. In March the Lake is a lake of ice. In September the students come back and the bookstores are full. Let X equal the month of full bookstores. The number of books approaches infinity as the number of months of cold approaches four. I will never be as cold now as I will in the future. The future of cold is infinite. The future of heat is the future of cold. The bookstores are infinite and so are never full except in September…”
…
Catherine: [voice over] How many days have I lost? How can I get back to the place where I started? I’m outside a house, trying to find my way in. But it is locked and the blinds are down, and I’ve lost the key, and I can’t remember what the rooms look like or where I put anything. And if I dare go in inside, I wonder… will I ever be able to find my way out?
…
Catherine: …and there’s no way to prove that I wrote it.
Hal: No. But we could sit down, we could talk it through and determine if you couldn’t have.[/b]