The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor. | |
― George Bernard Shaw | |
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On This Day In: | |
2018 | The Beam In Your Eye Adds Up |
Day 18: My Body Mass Index (BMI) | |
2017 | Open Your Eyes (And Your Heart) |
2016 | Privilege Too… |
2015 | Otherwise Obscured |
2014 | Fundamentals |
2013 | Proof – ing |
2012 | Deluge, n. |
2011 | Hail, Caesar! |
Why Were You Sent? | |
Posts Tagged ‘Genius’
Tragedy
Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Genius, George Bernard Shaw, Honor, Philosophy, Quotes, Tragedy on August 14, 2019| 7 Comments »
Patterns Of Caring
Posted in Education, Health, Movie Review, Movies, Reviews, Science and Learning, tagged A Brilliant Young Mind -- movie review, Alex Lawther, Alexa Davies, Asa Butterfield, Autism, China, Eddie Marsan, Genius, IMO, International Mathematics Olympiad, Isaac Cooper, Jake Davies, Jo Yang, Julie Ellis, Luke Shelton, Martin Humphreys, Martin McCann, Mathematics, Michael Ellis, Nathan Ellis, Rafe Spall, Rebecca Dunn, Sally Hawkins, Very Strong to Highly Rcommended Movie, X+Y -- movie review, Zhang Mei on January 31, 2019| 2 Comments »
“X+Y” (2014) — movie review, released in the US as “A Brilliant Young Mind” (2015) | |
Today’s review is for the 2014 / 2015 movie “X+Y“, aka: “A Brilliant Young Mind“. The movie stars Asa Butterfield as Nathan Ellis (autistic math genius), Rafe Spall as Martin Humphreys (Nathan’s tutor), Sally Hawkins as Julie Ellis (Nathan’s mum), Eddie Marsan as Richard (UK tutor), Jo Yang as Zhang Mei (Nathan’s love interest), Martin McCann as Michael Ellis (Nathan’s dad), Jake Davies as Luke Shelton (mocked math genius), Alex Lawther as Isaac Cooper (mocking math genius), Alexa Davies as Rebecca Dunn (Piano girl / jealous crush). | |
There is something called the “International Mathematics Olympiad” (IMO) which brings together all of the maths geniuses from around the world to compete on their respective national teams. It seems China is the historically dominant power at this event. | |
Nathan is an autistic maths wiz. The only person he is close with is his dad who dies in a car accident. The accident makes Nathan even more reclusive / eccentric than he was before. | |
Nathan’s mum (the fish lady / maid in “The Shape of Water“) is not able to relate with her son and finally gets a piece of relief by shipping him off to compete in the IMO. Nathan’s tutor (Martin) is himself a “failed” maths prodigy and slowly builds a relationship with Nathan and his mum. Eddie Marsan plays the UK team manager who’s only concern is for the team to beat the Chinese team. Zhang Mei is Nathan’s “love” interest. He slowly pries Nathan from his turtle shell. Martin McCann is Nathan’s dad and is the only one who sees him as special and not weird. At least that is how Nathan feels. The final three main characters (Luke, Isaac and Rebecca) are other “kids” on the IMO team who are meant to demonstrate some other levels of autism or to act as a kind of alternative love interest. | |
Is this movie any good? Does it say anything about math? Does it say anything about kids? Does it say anything about autism? Yes, a little, nothing new, and I don’t know. | |
I really enjoyed this movie. I got interested in it a while back when I saw Butterfield in “Ender’s War” and thought I’d look out for any of his other work. (I’ve seen the previews for this film and the bits and bobs available on YouTube and have been waiting for this movie to become available on cable or on Vudu.) Now I’ve seen him in two very good roles and it will be interesting to see if he develops into a good adult actor or if he fades. As with “Ender”, Asa plays the straight role well and the emotional role almost as well. I don’t really understand autism, so I can’t say how accurately he portrayed the ending transformation. My gut feeling was it was too Hollywood and not realistic, but that just may be me. | |
The movie relates math to various aspects of the real world: pattern recognition, music, art, architecture, philosophy and love. They were not main points of the film though, so if you blink, you may miss a couple of them. | |
I don’t think this movie says anything original about kids. Certainly nothing you couldn’t get from a half-dozen other movies starting with “Lord of the Flies”. Yes, kids are mean and pick on other kids who may be viewed as somehow “different”. | |
As mentioned above, Nathan is “transformed” at the end of the movie. I doubt autism is cured on the road to Damascus, so I didn’t care for the resolution / summing up. It just seemed too tidy for my taste. Apparently, the movie is based on a real-life person and his reaction to viewing the film was: I am a maths wiz. I am not a rain man. For me, to the extent the movie related Nathan’s love for math, I felt it stood on firmer ground. | |
Final recommendation: very strong to highly. I do have an “unusual” fondness for movies with even the slightest math / science / computing theme, so you have to take this recommendation with the normal grain of salt you take my reviews… (LOL) I’m not usually a big fan of hazy / distorted filming to represent the perception of genius, but in this case, it worked pretty well. I liked the acting, the story and loose correlation of math to music, color, flow and pattern recognition. I will watch it again in the future. | |
One final note: I got to see this movie for free! I joined my local library (re-joined) and they have a pretty interesting selection of movies you can stream just for being a member of the library. It saved me having to purchase a movie I really wanted to see. They do limit my viewing to eight per calendar month, but it still seems a great deal to me! Who knew?? | |
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On This Day In: | |
2018 | And May Never Be |
2017 | Don’t Forget |
2016 | I Was A Percentage Man |
2015 | It Waits Patiently |
2014 | Unknown |
2013 | Explaining Love? |
2012 | Echoes of 1% |
2011 | Salaam, Egypt!! |
Where Do You Learn? | |
Bull’s Eye
Posted in Quotes, tagged Arthur Schopenhauer, Genius, Quotes, Talent on December 17, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. | |
— Arthur Schopenhauer | |
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On This Day In: | |
2016 | Gifts |
Jacked 3 | |
2015 | I’d Settle For Interesting |
2014 | Old Math |
2013 | Adequate Explanation |
2012 | Superior Discovery |
2011 | Welcome Home And Thank You!! |
Two Heritages | |
Two Geniuses
Posted in Movie Review, Movies, tagged Alan Turing, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Doctor Strange, G. H. Hardy, Genius, Highly Recommended Movie, Jeremy Irons, Joan Clarke, Keira Knightley, Sherlock Holmes, Srinivasa Ramanujan, The Imitation Game - movie review, The Man Who Knew Infinity - movie review on January 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Today’s reviews are for a pair of biographical movies about two geniuses. The men are Srinivasa Ramanujan and Alan Turing. Technically, both are mathematicians, but Turing is more remembered for his work with computers. The two movies are titled: “The Man Who Knew Infinity” (2015) about Ramanujan, and “The Imitation Game” (2014) about Turing. | |
“The Man Who Knew Infinity” (2015) — movie review | |
This movie stars Dev Patel as Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan and Jeremy Irons as his British mentor (collaborator) G. H. Hardy. Basically, a poor, self-taught mathematician moves to Trinity College at Cambridge after mailing some of his work to a world famous mathematics professor (Hardy). The two collaborate (and publish), but the movie is basically about their personal relationship and not about their maths. The movie is beautifully shot in both India and England and I was moved by the depictions of both environments: brightly colored poverty contrasted with muted earth-toned (relative) wealth. A second major plot contrast is Hardy’s atheism vs Ramanujan’s devout Hindu faith. Ramanujan tells Hardy that his math comes from the lips of his god. Hardy can only struggle to understand divine inspiration. In the end, Hardy accepts that his friend believes it is true even if he cannot share that belief. | |
Final recommendation: highly recommended and I look forward to reading the book (of the same title) the movie is based on. | |
“The Imitation Game” (2014) — movie review | |
This movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch (aka Sherlock Holmes / Doctor Strange) as Alan Turing and Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke who was Turing’s fiancé briefly. Turing was a homosexual and at that time, being gay was considered a serious crime in England. Both Turing and Clarke were mathematicians who became cryptologists. They famously developed a computer which was used to break the Nazi Enigma cypher. This movie describes this invention and Turing’s subsequent suicide. As a personal note: I consider Turing to be one of the seminal figures in computer science and in artificial intelligence. The “test” for general purpose artificial intelligence is named “The Turing Test” and based on one of his papers. | |
Turing and Clarke worked closely together and are reported to have actually been very close friends although I’ve seen Turing portrayed as almost autistic in dealing with social settings, so I’m not sure how accurate the descriptions or the portrayals have been. In any case, Turing proposed marriage to Clarke and then later withdrew and admitted to being gay. The movie purports to Clarke being indifferent to Turing’s sexuality as she is contented with having a relationship with a friend and an intellectual equal. | |
The “surprise” hack at the end of the movie is the realization that the Nazi messages all end the same and this can be used as a key to reduce the number of variations the computer needs to evaluate. Whether this is what actually happened or not, I don’t know, but it did make for a plausible ending! Final recommendation: highly recommended! | |
While I enjoyed both movies I would rate “Infinity” slightly higher than “Imitation”. I’m not really sure why, but I’ve already re-watched “Infinity” twice and I’m just getting around to my second viewing of “Imitation”. But, again, both highly recommended… | |
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On This Day In: | |
2016 | Come Dance And Laugh With Me |
2015 | Looks Good To Me |
2014 | Desire For The Sea |
2013 | The Fierce Urgency Of NOW |
Happy Inauguration Day! | |
2012 | One Path |
Sorrow And Joy | |
The Seven Year View | |
2011 | Emergent Practicality |
Reflections
Posted in Quotes, tagged Books, Fools, Genius, J.K. Rowling, Mirrors, Quotes on February 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out. | |
― J. K. Rowling | |
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On This Day In: | |
2015 | Is It Time Yet? |
2014 | Ask Any Follower |
2013 | Cornered Or Surrounded? |
2012 | Escape |
2011 | Achievement |
Not Unreasonable Enough | |
How To Be Omnipotent
Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Calvin Coolidge, Determination, Education, Genius, Persistence, Philosophy, Quotes, Talent on February 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. | |
— Calvin Coolidge | |
[Emphasis provided by yours truly… — KMAB] | |
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On This Day In: | |
2014 | The Promise Of Future Love |
2013 | Christian, n. |
2012 | Praise |
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood | |
2011 | A Few More Lyrics From The Past |
5 For The Price Of 1 | |
Dark Processes
Posted in Quotes, tagged Genius, James Gleick, Mark Kac, On Genius, On Magicians, Quotes on August 9, 2014| 5 Comments »
There are two kinds of geniuses, the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what they have done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. | |
— Mark Kac | |
Quoted by James Gleick in the Prologue to his book: “Genius“ | |
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On This Day In: | |
2013 | To The Last Link |
2012 | Slept In Again |
2011 | Home Again, Naturally |
2009 | Thoughts after a long day of OT… |
A Day At The Beach
Posted in Quotes, tagged Genius, James Gleick, Quotes, Richard P. Feynman on August 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »
I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there. | |
— Richard Feynman | |
Quoted by James Gleick in his book: “Genius“ | |
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On This Day In: | |
2013 | Pillows |
Steppin’ | |
2012 | Invincible Summer |
2011 | Being Objective |
2010 | First Things First… |
Northwest Passages – Intro | |
Northwest Passages – Day One | |
Northwest Passages – Poetry | |
Northwest Passages – Evening One | |
Northwest Passages – Morning Two |