Four brilliant mathematicians whose genius has profoundly affected us but which drove them insane. [bbc]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3503877302082311448

by amichail • 19 years ago

19 14 19 years ago

video.google.com

henning• 19 years ago

Cantor and Nash went through their mental health problems at a time when diagnosis of mental issues was much worse than it is now. Lots of people suffered the same thing, genius or not. I don't think it has much to do with the fact that they were brilliant mathematicians.

gwenhwyfaer2• 19 years ago

And Turing's "insanity" has a lot more to do with the diabolical treatment he received at the hands of the British authorities; indeed, his suicide was arguably the rational act of a rational man.

(I'd hoped the BBC were above such sensationalism; I guess the memory of that old fascist Reith has now been thoroughly pissed upon.)

bct• 19 years ago

The math material was interesting, it's a pity they thought they had to spice it up with the insanity angle.

ranparas• 19 years ago

For those interested I would highly recommend "Godel Escher Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid (By Douglas Hofstadter)"

asdflkj• 19 years ago

I wouldn't. There are many flaws in this book, but the main one is he gets facts wrong, both biographical and mathematical. For example, he writes that Turing died of a lab accident when in fact he committed suicide. He also tries to define consistency for all formal systems, and does so with outlandish philosophy involving "all possible universes". In fact, consistency (or inconsistency) is a property only of formal systems based on propositional logic--a subset of all formal systems--and it's easy to define mathematically. I can only imagine how many inaccuracies are in it that I wasn't able to spot.

forgotmylastone• 19 years ago

Genius didn't drive Turing insane, society did.

mojuba3• 19 years ago

According to the film, Cantor had mental problems even before he dove into serious math - voices in his head, etc.

Turing: from the psychiatry standpoint homosexuality is a pathology too, and again, he had homosexual affairs before he started working on the problems that made him famous.

Which means, we may be confusing cause and effect here.

gwenhwyfaer2• 19 years ago

> from the psychiatry standpoint homosexuality is a pathology too

But what the fuck isn't?

mojuba3• 19 years ago

Someone who is absolutely free of neuroses is useless. Maybe that's what the story in OP about.

ed• 19 years ago

"from the psychiatry standpoint homosexuality is a pathology too"

Not any more, but in Turing's time yes.

mojuba3• 19 years ago

Then why you think he is in the list of "crazy" mathematicians, at least according to the authors? (It may be because of the suicide though, which is considered pathology even now.)

jsmcgd• 19 years ago

I thought the program communicated the material extremely well and I would definitely encourage others to watch it. I did feel it was a tad melodramatic but then again because the subject matter is so significant it could be in danger of being under-sold.

mynameishere• 19 years ago

I watched the first few minutes of this a while ago. They were making unrealistic Faustian analogies, and it came off as unpleasantly dishonest.

I would contend that no one has ever been driven crazy by thinking about mathematics. We like to think that sort of thing, but the branch of science involved is almost always chemistry...

steve• 19 years ago

I don't know, I start to change for the worse when I isolate myself from all people while programming for a very long time. Good thing we have the internet these days.

Four brilliant mathematicians whose genius has profoundly affected us but which drove them insane. [bbc]

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