Cameo Cinema St Helena, CA
Dr. Keith Devlin
NPR’s “Math Guy”; Professor, Stanford University
moderated byTucker Hiatt
Founder, Wonderfest
The Man Who Knew Infinity— Where do math insights come from?
Program Description
A presentation on Ramanujan’s revelations. Central to his insights — and central to the fundamental tension in the movie — is the murky provenance of mathematical truths: Where do math insights come from, and how important is the concept of proof?
Presented At
Cameo Cinema St Helena, CA
Film Synopsis
A true story based on the life of math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan and Professor G.H. Hardy, who recognized Ramanujan’s brilliance despite the latter’s lack of formal training and education.
During World War I, Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel), a self-taught Indian mathematics genius travels to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he forms a bond with the eccentric professor G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), and must fight against prejudice to reveal his genius to the world.
About the Speaker
Dr. Keith Devlin is a co-founder and executive director of Stanford University's H-STAR institute, a co-founder of the Stanford Media X research network, and a senior researcher at CSLI. He is a World Economic Forum Fellow, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. In this connection, he is a co-founder and president of an educational technology company, BrainQuake, that creates mathematics learning video games. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis. Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition. He has written 32 books and over 80 published research articles.
Dr. Devlin is the recipient of the Pythagoras Prize, the Peano Prize, the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his "innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics." He is "the Math Guy" on National Public Radio.
Tucker Hiatt founded Wonderfest in 1997. With the reincarnation of Wonderfest as an independent nonprofit corporation in 2011, the Wonderfest Board appointed Tucker to the position of executive director.
Hiatt earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of California with the expressed goal of becoming a science teacher. His thesis research explored a narrow aspect of experimental solid state (condensed matter) physics. Later, he worked with UC Berkeley’s Space Astrophysics Group to develop search algorithms that are now at work around the world in the SETI@home software.
Hiatt taught physics at UC Santa Cruz, Punahou School, San Francisco University High School, and Branson School. At the Exploratorium, he built an exhibit, wrote a guide book, and trained Explainers. Since 2008, he has been a Board member of the Bay Area Skeptics, and (until mid-2014) he held the position of Visiting Scholar in the Stanford Chemistry Department.
Hiatt has been a member of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) since 1978. He has published several articles and cartoons in The Physics Teacher, the AAPT journal. In 2001, he wrote and published the Layers of Scientific Understanding poster. And, in 2006, he earned the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence.