Show Your Work: Documentaries on Mathematics

The history of mathematics from ancient times to the present day. Narrated by Oxford mathematics professor Marcus du Sautoy, the series covers the seminal moments and people in the development of maths.

Professor Marcus du Sautoy demystifies the hidden world of algorithms and reveals where these 2,000-year-old problem solvers came from, how they work, and what they have achieved.

What is striking when you talk with mathematicians is that sparkle in their eyes, and their sudden joyful voice trying to share with you a concept, a theory. They continuously use words such as invention, beauty, freedom. You then ask yourself : how such a rich language, this quasi-philosophical proposition about the world becomes rejected by a majority, 'the only discipline where one prides itself to be bad at it'! But for 40 years, mathematitians have become essential in sickness and in health !

Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand. It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here? In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder? It's a mindbending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern. And the best thing is that one doesn't need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity. From trees to clouds to humans - after watching this film you'll never be able to look at the world in the same way again.

Filmed in Canada, Iran, and the United States, Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani examines the life and mathematical work of Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian immigrant to the United States who became a superstar in her field. In 2014, she was both the first woman and the first Iranian to be honored by mathematics' highest prize, the Fields Medal. Mirzakhani's contributions are explained by leading mathematicians and illustrated by animated sequences. Her mathematical colleagues from around the world, as well as former teachers, classmates, and students in Iran today, convey the deep impact of her achievements. The path of her education, success on Iran's Math Olympiad team, and her brilliant work, make Mirzakhani an ideal role model for girls looking toward careers in science and mathematics.

This mind-expanding, high-tech documentary, hosted by mathematician Dr. Hannah Fry, reveals what data is and how it is captured, stored, shared, and analyzed. Fry tells the story of the engineers of the data age, people most of us have never heard of despite creating a technological and philosophical revolution. Modern society runs on data, making information the world's most valuable asset.

Navajo students engage in a lively collaboration with mathematicians. Using concepts from Native culture and a unique student-centered approach, the project aims to spark interest in math and science and create greater educational opportunities.

In April 2013, a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire submitted a paper to the Annals of Mathematics. Within weeks word spread-- a little-known mathematician, with no permanent job, working in complete isolation had made an important breakthrough towards solving the Twin Prime Conjecture. Yitang Zhang's techniques for bounding the gaps between primes soon led to rapid progress by the Polymath Group, and a further innovation by James Maynard. The film is a study of Zhang's rise from obscurity and a disadvantaged youth to mathematical celebrity. The story of quiet perseverance amidst adversity, and Zhang's preference for thinking and working in solitude, is interwoven with a history of the Twin Prime Conjecture as told by several mathematicians, many of whom have wrestled with this enormously challenging problem in Number Theory-- Daniel Goldston, Kannan Soundararajan, Andrew Granville, Peter Sarnak, Enrico Bombieri, James Maynard, Nicholas Katz, David Eisenbud, Ken Ribet, and Terry Tao.

A team of mathematicians is working together on a big project. Excitement of discovery, hope and disappointment, competition and recognition are shown from an infinitely close distance. Scientists united by the idea of discretization, which, in short, means: constructing continuous objects from basic building blocks. Akin to the scientists' search for the right discretization of continuum, this film itself is composed of fragments - individual characters of different ages, temperaments and scientific approaches - which form a single continuous melody. The question of where the boundaries lie between mathematics and the lives of those who are involved in it and how much they are willing to sacrifice is as important as the search for precise scientific answers. A unique and unprecedented dive into the unknown world of mathematicians.

What is the Bellman Equation? This film searches for the mathematician who helped invent the Atom Bomb and invented the field of dynamic programming while being persecuted by McCarthy. A 12 year odyssey by the grandson of Richard Bellman, to solve the many issues surrounding Richard Bellman's life and death. Bellman remained an enigmatic figure to all who knew him, and his stature as one of the great mathematicians in history brings his grandson to some interesting revelations.

"The Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan" features well-known number theorists from around the world associated with Ramanujan's oeuvre, most notably A. Raghuram and Ken Ono. Shot at various locations in Chennai, Namakkal, Kumbakonam, Erode, and Cambridge, this documentary highlights the trajectory of Ramanujan's seminal work and its relevance today. His scientific legacy continues to grow well beyond anything that previous generations of mathematicians could have ever imagined. 2012 was declared the the "National Year of Mathematics" in India to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of the great mathematician Ramanujan.

To most people math appears abstract, mysterious, complicated, inaccessible. But math is nothing but a different language to express the world. Math can be sensual... Math can be tasted, it smells, it creates sound and color. One can touch it- and be touched by it...

Professor David Spiegelhalter tries to pin down what chance truly is and how it works in the real world. With his unique storytelling method, he applies a blend of wit and wisdom, animation, graphics, and gleeful nerdery to the joys of chance and the mysteries of probability. It is a vital branch of mathematics that tells us what might happen in the future based on the events of the past.

The highs and lows of Alan Turing's life, tracking his extraordinary accomplishments, his government persecution through to his tragic death in 1954. In the last 18 months of his short life, Turing visited a psychiatrist, Dr. Franz Greenbaum, who tried to help him. Each therapy session in this drama documentary is based on real events. The conversations between Turing and Greenbaum explore the pivotal moments in his controversial life and examine the pressures that may have contributed to his early death. The film also includes the testimony of people who actually knew and remember Turing. Plus, this film features interviews with contemporary experts from the world of technology and high science including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. These contributors bring Turing's exciting impact up to the present day, explaining why, in many ways, modern technology has only just begun to explore the potential of Turing's ideas.