My wife loved Jordan's book "Shape". Partner of a mathematician is a great target audience. What Jordan is doing here is difficult. There is a long tradition of shining high-minded snark on popular depictions of mathematics; see for example the writings of Dan Rockmore. This genre is constrained in the same way as "conservative columnist" for WaPo, for one's conclusions need to satisfy a particular audience, and are mostly predetermined. When we read math papers, we use all of our powers to deduce what the author intended. That’s not the stance here. I was the math guy for ABM. Not the first; the creative team could not reach an understanding with my dapper predecessor on how to balance the needs of math and cinema. My profession is ill-equipped to help here, for our only fiction writing experience is grant proposals. Until Nash's breakdown, much of the math is taken from his papers. For example, in grad school Nash used all 24 Greek letters in a paper. As luck would have it, a widely circulated publicity still showed Russell Crowe staring through his dorm window with "0 < pi < 1" scrawled on the glass. Anyone who imagines that math requires great flexibility of mind would be dismayed to learn that mathematicians can be cripplingly conventional. This photo bothered colleagues who could only imagine "pi" meaning, well, "pi". A hilarious UC Berkeley email exchange wondered if the math consultant was trying to make Russell look stupid. I edited an interview on the DVD extras where Nash proudly explains this use of the Greek alphabet. During Nash's recovery, the filmmakers asked that the math be a fictionalized approach to the Riemann Hypothesis. Nash himself asked me about the porch clipboard, a novel notation for continued fractions. In the library scene here, the blackboard is adapted from famous related work in the 1960s. Nash is being generous with the grad student who missed the memo on covering spaces. I had this exact conversation with Barry Mazur when I saw this connection between my courses at Harvard. Barry simply responded with utter joy, "It's all connected!" As a failed painter, my favorite scene would be the board Nash erases. Before ABM, math in media was always four lines like a physics T-shirt. After ABM, one sees math as Jackson Pollock in ads everywhere.

I like how the simpsons leaves math jokes for people like him and the dynamite gag for people like me.

This is a really good idea by Penguin. Having the authors talk about their passion is a much better advertisement for their work than just talking about the book. If the author is interesting, we will want to read what they wrote. This guy was interesting.

This guy taught my discrete mathematics course 12 years ago. Best math lecturer I ever had!

My favourite TV math scene is in Sesame Street, when the Count taught Big Bird how to count to 5. Now I didn't really buy it, birds can't speak English, and I didn't buy the acting, but boy was it passionate. It brought a tear to my eye

I love how Jordan saw that A is to B mistake in Pi for what it was supposed to be. Aronofsky admits this very mistake in the directors commentary.

"Get me that butterfly!" Comedy gold. 🦋

I found it funny how Jordan says mathematicians make mistakes with greater than (>) and less than (

IMO, Jeff Goldblum is always the best part of any movie he's in.

I am extremely surprised about how much mathmaticians are involved in the movie industry.

One interesting thing that A Beautiful Mind did get right is that 90% of hallucinations are auditory-only, and visual ones almost always start as auditory. Any time one of his hallucination characters appear, they're always heard off-screen first; they call out to him and then the camera turns and we see them.

It’s been 10 seconds and I already like this guy

I mean I totally love these "An expert rates different movie scenes regarding their field of expertise"-videos, but an expert saying that a movie scene is inaccurate and HE IS IN THE SCENE HIMSELF blows my mind. Even though I work in media and worked on fictional movies and understand how this stuff happens, it still blows my mind. Incredible :D

LOVE this guy. With all his hyperactive energy and passion he kind of reminds me of Richard Dreyfus in Jaws.

I’m not mathematician but if they displayed math “perfectly accurately” wouldn’t that earn a 10/10 lol.

Loved this - part 2 please!

The most ridiculous thing about the Good Will Hunting scene was the students. No one in lectures was that bright-eyed & bushy-tailed, so raptly attentive, or so prim, proper or chipper. And the students weren’t all so homogeneous. I rate that scene an i/10 [sic]

Such a lovely video. Thank you for this! Simply, a learned something new :)

Loved this video, the topic, the guy giving his opinion, the movies/scenes that they picked, excellent combination.

It was very interesting to listen to this professor talking in a foreign language

@4:00 Additionally, at some point in the movie, when Max is explaining what the golden ratio is to Lenny Mayer, Max says that the golden ratio is represented by the greek letter Theta, when in fact, it is represented by Phi.

Loved this so much! Can you do another one that covers math in high school movies? It's always so random!

Jill Clayburgh teaches the Snake Lemma in It's My Turn. My algebra professor showed this scene as he was beginning his lecture on it.

3:23-3:44 thinking of '90s drum and bass differently from now on

There's also a super brief moment with some impressively good math in season 2 of I Think You Should Leave! It flashes on the screen for a second during the Capital Room sketch.

Love this video. I enjoyed Jordan's book How Not to Be Wrong. I need to read it again I think.

Very pleased to see Penguin UK breakdown a core academic subject like this. Bravo! Also great plug by Jordan to describe why we still need math ans math education today. Should a teaching scenes breakdown be next??

Pythagorean formula for Exp.[W%] is used all the time to estimate value added from RunCreation (hitting) or RunPrevention (fielding & especially pitching). BUT, exponent that makes the formula fit best is 1.89 +/- a bit . . . which depends on season and some park affects.

Just want to say that this is easily the best video in the series so far, and the best series of its variety that I have ever seen. These are great videos, Penguin Books, please keep this up!

Does this guy has his own channel? I'm only 3 minutes in and already a big fan!

McKenna Grace is quite literally gifted in anything. Doing college already, plays a dozen instruments, is an amazingly skilled actress, can apparently sing now too and that she memorized the stuff in the movie Gifted proved that even more.

I wondered what he thinks of the CBS show Numb3rs. That had mathematician advisors and was reported to be well received by other mathematicians.

It’s too bad that Good Will Hunting couldn’t get the math right. It’s a great movie. I would be interesting if there was some theory that we still haven’t proven to this day and Will managed to prove it over a weekend. I think if you are like me and didn’t even pay much attention to what was on the blackboard you would have liked the movie.

Took number theory from Prof. Ellenberg at Princeton as a freshman in 2008. Great lecturer, awesome dude!

7:34 off topic, I love the this will destroy you song. Its really good

The Fermat Theorem counter example works on pockets calculators which are only accurate to 8 digits.

If another video is made, I would love to see 'Stand and Deliver' looked at.

Proud to say that I knew about a few things he talked about. Unfortunately I'm not going any further than that in mathematics haha.

I don't know much math. But I love that Professor Ellenberg said "One of the best functions." It sounds like something that I would say. Best function! 10/10.

Pi is one of the best movies ever made and quite possibly the best soundtrack ever!

Penguin Books branching into KZfaq videos sounds like a joke from Bojack Horseman...

Loved the movie Gifted! On the first watch I did a double take when I saw Jordan in it haha

You should look at the scene in Beautiful mind where nash is a professor and writes the hard problem on the blackboard.

I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about but I absolutely love how excited he is. ❤

I think something that was missed by almost everyone is that the very final question the girl asks in Pi is 'what is 748 divided by 238'. This is the familiar 22/7 approximation of pi with both numerator and denominator multiplied by 34. Either the film maker getting in a final secret plug for the star constant, or more darkly, too much of a coincidence and an indication that drilling his head didn't work and he is only imagining he woke up back in the real world. When in actual fact he is still unconscious/dying and his sub-conscious is still fixated on Pi.

Honestly, I can't even understand the math they're teaching my kids in school these days. It's completely different than what I learned. This was great

I would love to hear his opinion on the mathematics in Hidden Figures.

I'm a maths teacher so I was trying to basically spot any of the issues as you were talking through them. I do love good will hunting but the maths is pretty poor.

Actually, the sum of those numbers on the 12th power is almost equal to the number on the right. They differ only in their 11th digit, which is amazing.

I'd be curious to see what he thinks about 21, X+Y (aka A Brilliant Young Mind), and Matthew Broderick's Feynmann.

The explanations of chaos theory in Jurassic Park the book are tons better than how it's presented in the movie. At least in my opinion

This guy is ruthless. Love it!

Kudos for including Pi, an underrated movie with an amazing soundtrack!

I would have liked to have seen the movie stills held on screen for longer while Jordan was talking, but I enjoyed this video.

@1:32 - Doesn't Homer replace the "greater than" sign with a "less than" sign?

I used to love maths. This guy has all my respect.

He actually missed the point of the less than and greater than sign in the Simpsons example. In general relativity, Omega is the density parameter, which is the ratio of the energy density of the universe to the critical energy density. If this parameter is greater than one, the Einstein Field Equations predict a perpetually expanding ("blowing up"!) Universe.

4:44 Is Jordan saying he doesn't believe that Da Vinci was interested in the Golden Ratio? I can't see anything about that online.

3:50 i think i just had a stroke 🫠

This was very interesting.

11:22 right after in the same scene the guy goes on to say: _‘...the functor is in the two categories,’_ which is pretty irritating too. And Russell Crowe goes: ‘mm-hmm!’ 😆😆😆

Loved the vid. Pleased that Gifted is mostly accurate! :-)

Please correct the statement at 1:29 to 1:31. He replaces a "greater than" sign for a "less than" sign and not the other way as stated in the video. Also, at 12:38 tp 12:42; I hear: "For N to be congruent to four mod five,; the answer is a multiple of five." The mistake mentioned at 12:52 is not on the video.

The golden ratio, Fibonacci sequence, an interesting thing but not as ubiquitous as some folk make out. Anyway good video, and cool that you were in one of them.

I'd like to see you break down Scott Steiner's math promo

How do you do this and not include the Snake Lemma scene from It's My Turn?

This was great...interesting, lively, fun. Someone posted they would like to have the TV show "Numbers" evaluated; and I'd love to have Jordan review a few clips from "The Big Bang Theory" ("Would you like to do the math?" "Yes, I think I would like to do the math.")

10:24 Yes they have advisors, but they often dont listen to them/ignore them/alter what they said to do etc.

For the Good Will Hunting part, I wish Jordan was shown the part where Will solved the graph theory problem on the board.

How in the world does he have such an interest in and grasp of sabermetrics, but has never seen moneyball?

Nice video 👍💐🌹

Yes! Loved that you pointed out the soundtrack, it was sick! I need to find out what it is

I was surprised at how good Gifted was. Highly recommend.

This is missing the greatest maths scene in TV/Movie history... Season 1 Finale of Silicon Valley!

I'm pretty sure the equation Homer changes the inequality of is the FRW-derived expansion rate of the universe. There's an H_0 in there, which is Hubble's Constant, and the sign of Omega relates to the combination of factors that impacts universal space-time curvature and/or expansion. If less than 1 you have a closed universe, equal to 1 gives a flat universe and above 1 gives a negative curvature open universe. I might have got some of that wrong, it's been 14 years since I last ran a numerical model involving dark energy and my last 30s brain has replaced it with information I use more regularly, like how to change a tyre or the call outs for Vault of Glass in Destiny.

10:10 the first line is just an affine variety or something. The second line is some kind of L-function? N hat as in a completed norm and d the index of ideal q?

Would love to see Prof Ellenberg break down the Imitation Game.

Idk who’s idea was this to have penguin authors host these series, but it’s genius. Kudos.

Need a part 2 reacting to the confused math lady meme 😂

Also, re "A Beautiful Mind," I know from folks who work at Princeton University, and from meeting John Nash a couple of times . . . that well, let's say Ron Howard's priority was delivering an enjoyable, understandable story. Absolute accuracy was a bit lower on the list.

i love that comment about the US Military being like 'get me that butterfly' lol so emblematic of a powerful figure/institution trying to co-opt something they don't understand

I would like to hear your thoughts on the movie Proof (2005).

D'yall watch that video where it shows the Golden Ration is not, in fact, everywhere in nature?

1) He didn't explain the math joke in the Simpsons at all. You see, at that time most calculators would display numbers to such a number of decimal places that it told you that the equation Homer wrote holds. There were really some people who noticed it, put it in the calculator and since the proof of Fermat's theorem had already been recognized and was a BIG deal they were like: What the f**k is going on? 2) He has obviously never seen Jeff Goldblum in TV shows etc. He didn't have to act at all, he's even more math-weird in real life :D

This guy should have a show. Charming, funny, smart. But what about the film Proof?!

At 1:28 he actually replaces a *greater than sign* with a *less than sign*

As a child i wanted to be a mathematician or a game artist. I kept being told mathematician wasnt a real job and id never make it in the gameart world that eventually i just gave up. Mostly cause i couldnt afford college and stuff by myself when my mother refused to pay. So now i just toil away at a job i dont really like. Getting paid a little bit over 15$ and doing art on the side. Wish i could go back and encourage younger me and tell myself what i needed in order to be able to do what i actually wanted. Envourage your kids to pursue their dreams, they can always do a job they dont like as nuch if they fail, but its so much harder trying to reach what you love after you're stuck

I'm hoping you talked about the topology joke in the first Simpson's clip! Torus + bite -> Sphere! Maybe they cut that out?

The Adjacency problem or matrix is way easier than how it is presented in the film. The branches aren’t really that difficult to figure out

In good will hunting I believe the professor had already proved the Theorem he was just using it as to see which of the students could figured it out as well

Should have recused maybe for the last one? But great comments on the rest:)

I'm surprised he didn't do any scenes from Hidden Figures. Especially the scene where Kevin Costner hands Taraji Henson the chalk and she does the calculations regarding landing the capsule in front of all the bigwigs at the meeting.

Hi Jordan! I'm surprised you didn't mention the best depiction ever, Jill Clayburgh's proving the snake lemma in front of a snotty grad student. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l75ygbOb19zcXX0.html Last I saw there was still a picture of here in the Princeton math mailroom (from when she came to practice with Nick Katz).

Can someone share the music that was playing in the pie movie

@2:45 - Fourier transforms and Graph theory *are* very much related (through the eigendecomposition of a normalized Laplacian).

1:27 I ain't no mathematician but I'm pretty sure Homer replaces the greater than sign with the less than sign, not the other way around...🤷‍♂

Has anyone caught that he makes a mistake at 4 minutes and says that A would have to equal zero, when actually B would have to equal zero?

I love Penguin UK exclusives.

1:29 - Wouldn’t it be correct to say that Homer erased a greater than > and replaced it with a less than < sign? I believe he said the reverse of what I wrote.

You forgot the fine structure constant on the black board in "The Simpsons."