Re: Dangerous knowledge

[Ronnie Brown <ronnie.profbrown@btinternet.com>]

Hi,

A while ago, I started to watch a BBC programme on a mathematical 
Olympiad camp, but gave up when it was clear that they were concentrating
on a participant  with peculiar behaviour and hardly noticed the several 
pretty girls around! That also sounds like peculiar behaviour.

Perhaps we need a TV programme about producers of TV programmes?

Ronnie Brown


Alex Hoffnung wrote:
> Hi -
>
> I think I watched this documentary a while ago.  I watched only a few
> minutes of it today and then realized that I should probably be doing
> something else.  However, I was interested and want to comment briefly.
>
>
>   
>> In this one-off documentary, David Malone looks at four brilliant
>> mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan
>> Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically
>> drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide.
>>
>>     
>
> I am not sure what it means for one's genius to drive him or her insane.
> >From what I can gather in this summary and my recollection of the film, the
> director seems to exploit the illnesses of some of these men to provide some
> theatrical drama to the story.  If this is so, then it seems rather
> irresponsible.  If I am mistaken and have not watched enough of the video,
> then my apologies to the director.
>
>
>   
>> The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work
>> proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics.
>> He believed he was God's messenger and was eventually driven insane
>> trying to prove his theories of infinity.
>>
>>     
>
> This statement does not directly blame the illness on his struggle with
> mathematics, but it seems dangerously suggestive of this conclusion.  Here
> is a quote from Wikipedia:
>
> Cantor's recurring bouts of
> depression<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_depression>from 1884
> to the end of his life were once blamed on the hostile attitude of
> many of his contemporaries,[9]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor#cite_note-daub280-8>but
> these episodes can now be seen as probable manifestations of a bipolar
> disorder <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder>.[10]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor#cite_note-bipolar-9>
>
> This seems like the more reasonable, albeit possibly less glamorous
> description of the causes of Cantor's illnesses.  Since I did not watch
> further I cannot comment on the others, except that I did not know of any
> mental disorders associated to Turing.
>
> Best,
> Alex Hoffnung
>

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