Mathematics as a Science of the Poor in Spirit?

Rating: 2/10 (1 December 2006)

I do not want to comment on the film as a whole, but only on one aspect of it, namely on how it depicts the central topic of mathematics.
The main problem with this movie is that it deals with potentially very interesting stuff, but in a rather imbecile way. If you happen to have some elementary knowledge concerning mathematics, you will soon realize that the creators of this film probably do not. They simply have no idea of what mathematics is about and what a genius in mathematics might occupy himself with. The result is irritating.
The "genius mind" of Max Cohen looks like pictured by a 10-year-old child: he knows how to multiply and divide large numbers. That's about all. The "mysterious" ideas he is haunted by fall in two categories: some are merely common knowledge, or at least they are very old and all the people interested in the subject generally know them (e.g. the golden ratios, Galileo's ideas about the mathematics as a language of nature, etc.); the remaining ones are merely ridiculous: the search for the number that is the key to the universe, i.e. the old Pythagorean idea taken literally, rid of the context in which it can make sense.
Unfortunately, this film deals with no mystery. The questions it raises are stupid, and the answers it provides are trivial.