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.
The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. He believed he was God's messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity. Ludwig Boltzmann's struggle to prove the existence of atoms and probability eventually drove him to suicide. Kurt Gödel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death.
Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.
The film also talks to the latest in the line of thinkers who have continued to pursue the question of whether there are things that mathematics and the human mind cannot know. They include Greg Chaitin, mathematician at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, New York, and Roger Penrose.
Dangerous Knowledge tackles some of the profound questions about the true nature of reality that mathematical thinkers are still trying to answer today.
14 Comments
FishBulbsays...Damit, why can't I vote twice!?
TickleMyElmo"Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable."
Unmitigated bullshit.
He committed suicide after being convicted of the crime of homosexuality and subjected to hormone therapy. Painting it as some quirk of genius is unfathomably ignorant.
qualmI know someone -- a true eccentric -- who's stashed himself away on a little island, who knew Turing through his father, who worked with him during the war. We've had some interesting chats over "tea".
jonny*dead
siftbotThis published video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by jonny.
siftbotAwarding fissionchips with one star point for fixing this video's dead embed code.
fissionchipsFixed with part 1/2.
Part 2/2 here:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-1663091361786740235
NordlichReiterThere is a movie about this stuff. Its called Π
GeeSussFreeKHere is the complete video, I recommend a swap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0hALyh40xg&feature=related
eric3579*dead
siftbotThis video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by eric3579.
siftbotAwarding eric3579 with one Power Point for fixing this video's dead embed code.
eric3579*findthumb
siftbotThe thumbnail image for this video has been updated - findthumb requested by eric3579.
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