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Proof, the movie

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By overconvergent
Posted Mon Feb 13, 2006 at 06:21:21 AM PDT

This weekend, I saw Proof at the cinema. These are my thoughts on the movie (there are mild spoilers below).

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As mentioned before here at Concerns, the movie Proof presents a fairly sympathetic portrait of mathematicians.

There are even a few genuine pieces of mathematics (the definition of Sophie Germain primes, and Ramanujan's number 1729) and the sort of mathematics humour which people like the Klein Four Group would employ; the rock band have a song called "i" which is three minutes of silence, because it's an imaginary number.

I felt that the greatest achievement of the film was that it felt right; the general impression given felt authentic, even if very few of my colleagues do look like Gwyneth Paltrow or Anthony Hopkins.

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Proof, the movie | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)

[new] Another review (none / 0) (#1)
by Vanes63 on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 07:33:25 AM PDT

I saw it a while back myself and I thought it was pretty good.

Realize though that I like most of the movies I see, I am generally not picky about movies. Although I did wish they talked more about mathematics in the film.

The acting was ok, I thought they picked the right people for the film (Jake Gylanhaal plays "geek rocker" very well).

Although what I didn't like about the story is that Gwen (not because it was her, but the part she played) was portrayed as emotionally unstable which perpetuates the mathematician = psychological disorder sterotype. I could be seeing it all wrong and it could have just been this story, but after "Beautiful Mind", "Pi", and seeing this? Yeah, I wonder where people get it from...

Overall, I'd say you have to at least give it a chance and see it once, at least to check the math in the film ;).

Did anyone else see it? What did you think?

I agree ... by overconvergent, 03/16/2006 02:02:36 PDT (none / 0)

I'm with overconvergent by Morgenstern, 09/07/2006 13:28:03 PDT (none / 0)

[new] Proof (2005) (none / 0) (#3)
by WOEuclid on Sun Mar 05, 2006 at 04:36:18 PM PDT

I liked it. Worth seeing. The play was alright to read.

Proof, the movie | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)

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