Star*Men (2015) (7/10)

I had the pleasure of watching the movie directed by Alison Rose at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium, followed by Q&A with two of the stars Donald Lynden-Bell and Nick Woolf, and the director. These two along with Roger Griffin and Wallace Sargent formed a quartet of British astronomers in their mid-twenties who found themselves together at Caltech in Pasadena the 1960s as postdocs and went on to become shining astronomers, through, what Wal would call hard work. Their passion for astronomy and travel saw them do many road-trips then. Fifty years later they decided to revisit some of those places, and Star*Men is a documentation of that.

Watching it at Caltech with fellow-astronomers was special. It was good to see Donald Lynden-Bell on stage answering questions about what he would do today and what he thought of space explorations and humanity and all that. I first met him about twenty years ago at IUCAA, India when I was a graduate student myself, and he does not seem to have aged a bit. That is what is also reflected in the movie as they travel and talk about some of their thoughts about, well, the life, the universe, and everything. I had the privilege of interacting with Pandit Wal at Caltech with whom I could chat about quasars as well as cricket. While there are many great astronomers, as also other professionals in different fields, the story shows how the bond of friendship between these four and the world outside astronomy - if connected by astronomy - stayed strong for five decades. Though they do not discuss much science, I hope it conveys to the young watchers their fascination for it and perhaps helps them gravitate to it. 

Star*Men  (2015) (7/10)

The Game (1997) (7/10)

Riveting, compelling at the start. Then for a little bit it seems a bit like those internet puzzles where all you are supposed to do is to figure out going to the next step. But this is not exactly like that since the next step comes to you. Its too elaborate, and has too much confidence in the deductive and follow-up powers of the victim. The initial seduction to the idea is of course based on curiosity, and the ability to be sucked in no matter how aloof you consider yourself to be. A few twists, but again a bit too elaborate and big and too realistic. One wrong turn and poof. But no, everything seems well executed. The victim does not realize whats happening at all.

The Game (1997) (7/10)

The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) (7/10)

A biopic about Srinivas Ramanujan (born 1887), the story had to mostly stick to facts. But there was enough drama in Ramanujan's life, not to mention the dramatic mathematical formulae he conjured one after another. Liberties have been taken about relative ages of people involved but that seems to help in keeping the focus on his life and mathematics. Only a little discussion of actual mathematics ensures that people will not get repelled by it. There is enough broad-stroke discussion to try to give the general audience a rough understanding of what Ramanujan managed despite troubling conditions.

At one point Hardy says: 'We can not converse in Tamil', to which Ramanujan replies: 'But you would want me to converse in English'. All the characters do use English in the movie, and the retort is ironic because Dev Patel playing Ramanujan does not speak Tamil.

The balance of proof (necessity of) and intuition comes out nicely. Ramanujan wants to run away with intuition but Hardy would like to reign him for the sake of concrete progress within Ramanujan's life-time. Intuition, or drawing together diverse facts subconsciously, happens best when you are at ease. Ramanujan though, seems to have managed it despite troubles of all colors. I guess it is the focus that he could muster would have played a large part.

Its a pity that a journey through the lost notebook can not be shown to all like Indiana Jones going after the lost arc. But I did feel after seeing the movie that it would be fun to dabble again a bit in Pure Maths. The abstract joy of even rediscovering connections known for a long time is unparalleled.

The recent - and continuing - story of Mochizuki's work on the abc conjecture tells us how the world has drawn away from purely intuition based works. Clearly Mochizuki would have had intuitions about his Frobenioids, but he had to also put together a proof for his solution. No more isolated romanticism as the world is too connected. Or is it?

The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) (7/10)