Dear John, you wrote:
We oldsters can tut-tut about the inaccuracies and lack of serious content, but as a kid I would have enjoyed it - and if it makes one youngster pursue a career in mathematics instead of crime, that may justify its existence.
Perhaps, a better and more exciting model for the youngster is Richard Feynman, a "genious" with common sense: http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm Best, André -------- Message d'origine-------- De: categories@mta.ca de la part de John Baez Date: mar. 01/12/2009 21:16 À: categories@mta.ca Objet : categories: Re: Dangerous knowledge The BBC wrote: In this one-off documentary, David Malone looks at four brilliant
mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide.
Jim Stasheff wrote: At least the Turing implication is very misleading - see below.
It's also not true that George Cantor committed suicide! And I would not call Ludwig Boltzmann a mathematician. I'd call him a physicist. But the documentary seems a bit more accurate than this summary. And it could be good to have documentaries that sensationalize mathematics and make it seem "edgy" and "dangerous". We oldsters can tut-tut about the inaccuracies and lack of serious content, but as a kid I would have enjoyed it - and if it makes one youngster pursue a career in mathematics instead of crime, that may justify its existence. Best, jb [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]