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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Actor
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
05 Sep 2005
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.
18 Jan 2008
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.
01 Sep 2015
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.
01 Feb 1946
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.
01 Jan 2010
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.
03 Jul 1991
Made entirely on Roger Wagner's HyperStudio software, Chris Marker explores set theory, using Noah's Ark as an example.
25 Jan 2017
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.
11 Jul 1998
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.
15 Apr 2002
Eight strangers awaken with no memory, in a puzzling cube-shaped room where the laws of physics do not always apply.
10 Oct 2004
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.
10 Jul 1998
A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.
07 Oct 2007
Four mathematicians are imprisoned in a shrinking room; with the walls closing in, they must try anything to escape this fatal puzzle.
28 Sep 2005
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.
25 Jul 2024
In the 1940s, the world was in turmoil, and it was crucial to decipher the enemy's communication codes in a timely and accurate manner. Rong Jinzhen has shown amazing mathematical talent since her childhood, and because she solved the problems assigned by her math teacher, she was noticed by more people, and even walked into the door of code-breaking by mistake.
01 Jan 1989
A video by doctor John Hubbard discussing the origin, characteristics, and applications of the Mandelbrot set and other iterative sets.
01 Jan 1986
Based on the thesis of Alejandro Rivero and Ernesto Pacheco, this documentary attempts to glimpse, through the senses, the fourth mathematical dimension.
17 Jan 2020
Filmed in Canada, Iran, and the United States, Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani examines the life and mathematical work of Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian immigrant to the United States who became a superstar in her field. In 2014, she was both the first woman and the first Iranian to be honored by mathematics' highest prize, the Fields Medal. Mirzakhani's contributions are explained by leading mathematicians and illustrated by animated sequences. Her mathematical colleagues from around the world, as well as former teachers, classmates, and students in Iran today, convey the deep impact of her achievements. The path of her education, success on Iran's Math Olympiad team, and her brilliant work, make Mirzakhani an ideal role model for girls looking toward careers in science and mathematics. Written by George Csicsery
13 May 1993
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.
12 Apr 2018
A portrait of the visionary Dutch artist M. C. Escher (1898-1972), according to his own words, taken from his diary, his correspondence and the texts of his lectures.
01 Sep 2007
M.C. Escher is among the most intriguing of artists. In 1956 he challenged the laws of perspective with his graphic Print Gallery and his uncompleted master-piece quickly became the most puzzling enigma of modern art. Fifty years later, can mathematician Hendrik Lenstra complete it? Should he?