Cantor, Boltzmann, Gödel, and Turing

Oh my.

A BBC documentary on four of the greatest mathematicians of the last 150 years (well, three mathematicians and a physicist--Boltzmann seems kinda strangely shoehorned into this group; his work doesn't seem particularly attached to the others). It's actually a little light on content--it doesn't describe the Continuum Hypothesis, entropy, or the halting problem other than superficially. And it seems to fall prey to the common fallacious canard that entropy suggests that "all things must pass away," "all life must end," blah blah yada yada. Still, typically impressive BBC production: Interesting content, nice locations, good interviews. It's no Cosmos, but it's pretty good.



Also, we've got asylum, suicide, starvation, and suicide. Plus a jailing, chemical castration, and I lost count of how many breakdowns--apparently, being a great mathematician turns one into a raving nutter and/or leads to a life of suffering.