Big Poppa, or Big Daddy?

For purposes of this discussion, however, I will try not to get pulled into the ocean of Nicolas Cage adulation, and will instead try to focus on the mathematical content in his 2009 film, Knowing.  This turns out to be a fairly simple task, as you will soon see.

In Knowing, Cage stars as John Koestler, a professor of astrophysics at MIT (already, the potential for mathematics is promising).  He is a widower with a young son, named Caleb, who goes to a nearby elementary school.  Near the beginning of the film, Caleb’s school holds a celebration in honor of its fiftieth birthday, and as part of the festivities they unearth a time capsule that was buried 50 years prior.  The time capsule is filled with drawings from former students, but Caleb gets a little short-changed: instead of receiving paper with a drawing, his paper just has a long sequence of numbers.

As might be expected by the presence of a long list of numbers, Knowing is less concerned with math than it is with numerology.  Don’t let John Koestler’s profession fool you – aside from one scene in the classroom where you can spot Maxwell’s equations if you know where to look, there is very little in the way of mathematics in this film.  But the more important question to ask is whether this is a bad thing.

While the lack of mathematics may make the trailer seem a bit disingenuous, Knowing is aptly named in the sense that it knows the film’s conceit has nothing to do with mathematics.  Unlike a film such as Pi, which attempts to pass off numerological voodoo as actual mathematics, Knowing is very much aware that Koestler’s analysis of the numbers from the time capsule does not constitute research in mathematics.  At one point his colleague even points this out to him, saying “Whoa. Just step back. Have another look at it! Systems that find meaning in numbers are a dime a dozen. Why? Because people see what they want to see.”

Another difference between this film and Pi is that here, the pattern of the numbers is discovered fairly early on, and it becomes quite predictable.  There is less mystery in the numbers themselves than there is in how a schoolgirl 50 years ago came to write the numbers down.  Thankfully, the answer to the latter question is resolved as well (spoiler alert: it all has to do with angel aliens).

Does this film pertain to mathematics?  Not really.  But nor does it aspire to be.  In that sense, then, I would certainly consider this a better film than Pi.  Should they remake Pi with Nicolas Cage, however, all bets are off.

The headline for the article really speaks for itself: “Rare time/date alignment could mean opportunities.” This refers to the fact that in the wee hours of the morning today, it was 4:05:06 on the date 07/08/09.

When is it not a good day to have good health? Who wakes up, looks out the window, and decides that no, today is really a day for rather poor health? What does this even mean?

And how can someone be a “numerology expert?” Would any self-respecting newspaper publish a story from a phrenology expert? Why does numerology so often seem to get a pass? If you want to know why nobody reads newspapers anymore, this serves as an excellent indication. Is this seriously what passes for journalism in 2009? I guess because it’s in the “Offbeat” section, that makes it all ok.

Money-er quote:

Dear Joy, I think I can help you out. I have discovered that numbers do indeed have meaning. The meaning of the number 12, for example, is the number of eggs you’ll get if you go to the store and buy a dozen eggs. The number 1 represents the number of newspapers that thought such a crackpot story was worth publishing. And so on.

Here’s another question: how does one go about “looking” for significance in a given “time/date alignment?” What oracle does one consult in search of insights into the mysterious nature of 4:05:06 07/08/09? God, I hope USA Today follows up on this article, so that all of my burning questions can be answered.

The worst thing about this article is that if you’re going to post garbage, at least post the most interesting garbage possible. The fact that 4:05:06 07/08/09 occurs today (or slightly less than a month from today, for those of us outside of the states) is not nearly as interesting as the fact that 12:34:56 07/08/09 occurs (twice!) today. If you’re into this sort of thing, I see no reason to find the first time/date alignment more interesting than the second. I must admit, even I cannot resist publishing this post at the appropriate time.

Number partyyy!!! Courtesy of Kitsune Noir, by way of Meebobebo.

Watch out, USA Today, because I’ve got you in my sights. My influence is vast, and my resources infinite. Let’s dance.

Thanks for double dipping, Mr. Gordon, so that I can read these pointless articles yet again. Mr. Gordon has even set up a web page and a contest, with cash prizes for those who can celebrate Odd Day the most enthusiastically. Needless to say, I don’t think I will be the recipient of any such prize.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Mr. Gordon. I’m just sayin’.

Unfortunately, it seems there are those who wish to disturb my slumber.

Dan Vergano over at USA Today recently wrote a brief article which highlighted the fact that this year there are a whopping 2 “square days,” one of which is today, 4/01/2009. The day is called a square day because if you read the date as a number, the number turns out to be square. In this case, 4,012,009 = 2003 * 2003.

The article attempts to be relevant by making a tenuous link between this sort of mathematical wizardry and the latest film excursion into numerology – Nicolas Cage’s most recent triumph, Knowing. Mr. Vergano was also kind enough to link to my article on Square Root Day, although based on the tone of his article, I’m not sure he appreciated the point I was trying to make. Perhaps he intended to address my concerns, but in the process of writing he got lost in Nic Cage’s eyes. Lord knows it can happen to the best of us.

What's that, Mr. Cage? Sorry, I got a little distracted.

So, Mr. Vergano, if you’re reading this, I beg of you: use your powers for good. With a readership as large as I’m assuming yours must be, you have a venue to help dispel stereotypes about people who study mathematics. Of course, those stereotypes include, but are not limited to, the idea that mathematicians spend their days looking for significance in arbitrary dates.

To his credit, Mr. Vergano does point out the insignificance of these types of diversions. But if there isn’t any significance, what’s the point in writing about it? Does this happen in other fields besides mathematics?

I get that advances in math may not seem as sexy to the lay person as certain advances in the sciences, and sometimes the ideas can be difficult to communicate. But there are opportunities for those willing to look. Here’s one: why not write an article celebrating the contributions of Mikhail Gromov, recent recipient of the Abel prize? This, it seems to me, would be a much more worthy topic for a writer with such exposure.

I don’t think I’m alone in this, either. A look at the comments to Mr. Vergano’s article reveals many others who fail to see the importance of today as a square day.

Perhaps one day the USA Today blog will discuss some real mathematics. And on that day, I shall declare a legitimate math holiday. Until then, I will remain here and nervously await Pi Day 2010.

Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 3,996,001^1/2.

I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeon, but I’m not really sure who deemed this story worthy of inclusion on the front page of Yahoo. Similarly, I don’t know what it means when the article says that tomorrow’s “holiday” is met with great enthusiasm by “math buffs.” The article seems to suggest that a celebration like this falls within the realms of mathematics, when it more appropriately falls into the realm of numerology.

One could just as easily put significance on equally unimportant sets of dates. For example, I could decide to celebrate the “Doubling Dates” – dates in which the day is twice the month, and the year is twice the day. 02/04/08 has already passed, but it’s certainly not too late to start planning celebrations for 03/06/12, or 04/08/16.

Or, why don’t I start celebrating “Fibonacci Days,” days in which the year must be equal to the sum of the day and the month (those familiar with the process of generating the Fibonacci sequence will understand this choice of name). These days may seem quite plentiful – there will be 8 such days this year alone, for instance – but in any given century, there will be 57 years in a row with no Fibonacci Days! That must make them special, right?

The problem with these sorts of faux “math holidays” is that while they may seem to be an invitation to learn about and explore mathematics, for the general populace they simply perpetuate the stereotype that the bulk of a mathematician’s career is spent multiplying really big numbers together, or trying to find the 10^1010th digit of pi. This shortchanges the beauty of mathematics and the work of those who make a career out of it.

I’m all for mathematics appreciation days, but if we’re going to have them, let’s have them appreciate something substantive. Why not have appreciation days on the birthdays of some of our most famous mathematical historical figures? Rather than learning that sometimes, the square root of the last two digits of a given year is equal to both the month and day of a given date, which is both uninteresting and limited in scope, why not spend April 15th learning about the contributions of Euler, set aside April 30th to celebrate the work of Gauss, or take September 17th to gain some insight into the prolific work of Riemann? Those with less lofty ambitions could take a day to warn of the pitfalls of combining mathematics with sport by observing the tragic deaths of Galois or Gram, who died in a duel and after getting hit by a bicycle, respectively.

There are enough mathematicians in the history to supply content for every school day of the year, but most students would be hard pressed to name even a handful of important historical mathematical figures. Why this is deemed less important than the observation that 3 * 3 = 9 is slightly beyond me. But then again, maybe I’m just a curmudgeon.

Happy Square Root day, for whatever it’s worth.