Abstract:

``A  remarkable mathematician whose classical Chinese philosophical ideas helped him build bridges between China and the West. Shiing-shen Chern (1911-2004) is one of the fathers of modern differential geometry. Following a classical upbringing, Chern pursued his mathematical studies in Hamburg and Paris during the 1930s, building on the work of Elie Cartan. After World War II he traveled between the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and China. In 1960 he moved to Berkeley, where he created a center for geometry, and in 1981 became cofounder of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. His reputation led to invitations from the leaders of China to help renew research mathematics in China following the destruction of academic life during the Cultural Revolution.'' -- 54 min

Please visit http://www.ms.uky.edu~movies/ for more information on Math Movie of the Month events.

The Colors of Math

A documentary by Ekaterina Eremenko

“Documentary filmmaker Ekaterina Eremenko is famous for unique, innovative documentaries. Her new film Colors of Math (The Russian title, – Sensual Mathematics – is better) is an intellectually stimulating and beautifully shot film invites us to look at mathematics from a new angle as the arena of the senses. To most people mathematics appears abstract, mysterious. Complicated. Inaccessible. But math is nothing but a language to express the world. Mathematics can be sensual. In this documentary, the beauty of mathematics, its sounds, colors, taste, and texture are revealed through the eyes of contemporary mathematical geniuses Cedric Villani, Aaditya V. Rangan, Jean-Michel Bismut, Gunter Ziegler, Maxim Kontsevich, and Anatoly Fomenko.”

60 minutes.  Free!

Please see http://www.ms.uky.edu/~movies/ for more information regarding Math Movie of the Month events.

Title:  Counting from Infinity:  Yitang Zhang and the Twin Prime Conjecture,  A film by George Csicsery

Summary:  "In April 2013, a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire submitted a paper to the Annals of Mathematics.  Within weeks word spread: a little-known mathematician, with no permanent job and working in complete isolation, had made an important breakthrough towards solving the Twin Prime Conjecture.  Yitang Zhang's techniques for bounding the gaps between primes soon led to rapid incremental progress by the Polymath Group, and then to a further major innovation by James Maynard.  The film is a study of Zhang's rise from obscurity and a disadvantaged youth to mathematical celebrity.  The story of quiet perseverance amidst adversity, and Zhang's preference for thinking and working in solitude, is interwoven with a history of the Twin Prime Conjecture as told by several mathematicians, many of whom have wrestled with this enormously challenging problem in Number Theory." 

55 minutes.

 

                                 Finally...

                      What has been missing...

                         Has now returned...

                        Next Friday evening

                        is the world premiere

                                     of

                    the 2015 -- 2016 season

        M A T H   M O V I E   O F   T H E   M O N T H