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NOVA leads viewers on a mathematical mystery tour -- a provocative exploration of math's astonishing power across the centuries. We discover math's signature in the swirl of a nautilus shell, the whirlpool of a galaxy and the spiral in the center of a sunflower. Math was essential to everything from the first wireless radio transmissions to the prediction and discovery of the Higgs boson and the successful landing of rovers on Mars. But where does math get its power? Astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio, along with a colorful cast of mathematicians, physicists and engineers, follows math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond, all leading to the ultimate riddle: Is math an invention or a discovery? Humankind's clever trick or the language of the universe?
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54 min
2015-04-15
Released
English
5
7.8
Narrator (voice)
Actor
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7.6
A humor-inflected history of the of the number one, covering military applications in ancient Rome, the measurement of distances in India, and the decimal system created by Leibnitz.
2005-09-28 | en
7.7
Until recently geometry was 'cold', incapable of describing the irregular shape of a cloud, the slope of a mountain or the beauty of the human body. With fractal geometry, Benoit Mandelbrot gave us a language for our natural world. In this captivating documentary, the man himself explains this groundbreaking discovery.
2010-01-01 | en
6.5
Holmes and Watson board a passenger train bound from London to Edinburgh, to guard the Star of Rhodesia, an enormous diamond worth a fortune belonging to an elderly woman of wealth; but within the first hour of the trip, the woman's son is murdered and the diamond stolen and any of the passengers in their car could be the killer thief.
1946-02-01 | en
6.0
At Oxford University, a professor and a grad student work together to try and stop a potential series of murders seemingly linked by mathematical symbols.
2008-01-18 | en
6.3
Catherine is a woman in her late twenties who is strongly devoted to her father, Robert, a brilliant and well-known mathematician whose grip on reality is beginning to slip away. As Robert descends into madness, Catherine begins to wonder if she may have inherited her father's mental illness along with his mathematical genius.
2005-09-05 | en
6.9
This BAFTA nominated documentary tells the story of some of the brightest mathematical brains of a generation. Each year, exceptionally gifted teenagers from over 90 countries compete for medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad. The film follows a group of brilliant teenagers as they battle it out to become the chosen six selected to represent the UK.
2007-10-01 | en
7.0
A documentary about the life and works of the artist M. C. Escher. Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) usually referred to as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.
1999-07-02 | en
5.8
Made entirely on Roger Wagner's HyperStudio software, Chris Marker explores set theory, using Noah's Ark as an example.
1991-07-03 | fr
7.5
What is Bitcoin? With the advent of Bitcoin, the world's first digital currency, for the first time in history money is no longer controlled by banks or governments, but by the people who use it. But where did this currency come from? How does it work? And is it truly the way forward, or just a flash in the pan? Magic Money answers these questions and more as it explores the mysterious origins of Bitcoin, its role in society, and how it could shape the future.
2017-01-25 | en
7.5
Narrated by Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons, The Genius of George Boole assembles academics and industry leaders from across the globe to explore the life and importance of one of the world’s greatest unsung heroes.
2015-09-01 | en
6.6
Four mathematicians are imprisoned in a shrinking room; with the walls closing in, they must try anything to escape this fatal puzzle.
2007-10-07 | es
6.8
A group of strangers find themselves trapped in a maze-like prison. It soon becomes clear that each of them possesses the peculiar skills necessary to escape, if they don't wind up dead first.
1998-07-11 | en
5.5
Eight strangers awaken with no memory, in a puzzling cube-shaped room where the laws of physics do not always apply.
2002-04-15 | en
5.7
A young programmer whose job is to watch over the reality-warping Cube defies orders to rescue an innocent mother trapped in one of its rooms.
2004-10-10 | en
7.1
A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.
1998-07-10 | en
0.0
A video by doctor John Hubbard discussing the origin, characteristics, and applications of the Mandelbrot set and other iterative sets.
1989-01-01 | en
6.0
John von Neumann, one of the most incredible Hungarian-born scientists of all time, was named Man of the Century by the Financial Times in 1999. Among other scientific works, Neumann pioneered game theory and, along with Alan Turing and Claude Shannon, was one of the conceptual inventors of the stored-program digital computer. In late 1943 Neumann began to work on the Manhattan Project at the invitation of J. Robert Oppenheimer, and helped to design the first atomic bomb. This biography showcases the famous mathematician's work and legacy from the perspective of his daughter and colleagues. It is based on artefacts and documents from scientific history collections and on the personal memories of Marina von Neumann Whitman, Neumann's daughter. The film's production team has been filming all around the world, from Budapest to Los Alamos and Princeton, with the participation of several Hungarian and American scientists.
2024-12-10 | hu
0.0
In April 1969 Ilya (Eliyahu) Rips, then a young student of mathematics, tried to burn himself in a public square in Riga, Latvia protesting against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He was stopped and eventually sent to a psychiatric hospital for two years. Thanks to international pressure from the mathematical community in 1972 he was allowed to emigrate to Israel. Now he is considered one of the most brilliant mathematicians in the world. At the same time, for most people familiar with his name, Rips is first of all associated with the development of the so called Bible Code – a mathematical program allegedly helping to decipher hidden messages encoded in Torah – the Five Books of Moses. He is attacked by both the scientific and religious community, yet his research continues.
2016-05-04 | en
0.0
The story of how, in 1914, the self-taught Indian mathematical genius SRINIVASA RAMANUJAN came to England and Trinity College, Cambridge, to work with the great British pure mathematician GH Hardy.
1987-10-29 | en
7.2
In an age when genius is a mere commodity, it is useful to look at a person who led a rich life without the traditional trappings of success. A man with no home and no job, Paul Erdös was the most prolific mathematician who ever lived. Born in Hungary in 1913, Erdös wrote and co-authored over 1,500 papers and pioneered several fields in theoretical mathematics. At the age of 83 he still spent most of his time on the road, going from math meeting to math meeting, continually working on problems. He died on September 20, 1996 while attending such a meeting in Warsaw, Poland.
1993-05-13 | en