Family Relations,

1
Proof

• Family Relations,
• Memory and
• Madness (2)

2
Outline

• General Introduction
• The Play Mathematicians inspiring the play
• The Film Whats Added
• The Play Whats Deleted
• Questions
• Moments of Doubts and Validation
• Family Conflicts Catherine and Claire
• Ending (1) Catherines Guilt and Breakthrough
• Ending (2) Roberts Last Work
• Mathematics and Art
• Reference

3
The Play the Related Mathematicians

• Proof by David Auburn Pulitzer Prize in 2001
• The stage a revolving one so that the audience
  can see it from different perspectives.
• Mathematicians related to the play
• Paul Erdös who began taking amphetamines to keep
  working (? Hals description of the conferences
  he goes to)
• Andrew Wiles worked on Fermat's Last Theorem in
  solitude for 7 years (ref. Audrey) (? Catherines
  proof)

4
Mathmatics

• Catherines work It looks like it proves a
  theorem... a mathematical theorem about prime
  numbers, something mathematicians have been
  trying to prove ....

• Conjecture ??
• Theorem conjecture which mathematicians believe
  in but havent been able to prove
• e.g. Fermat's Last Theorem X3Y3Z3,?X?Y?Z????????
  ?,??????????????????,????2????Later proved by
  Wiles

5
Mathematicians

• 3. John Forbes Nash, Jr, -- the subject of A
  Beautiful Mind (1998)
• produced his thesis on game theory at the age of
  21, then suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
  
• resumed living a normal life and studying
  mathematics and was awarded the Nobel Prize in
  1994.
• According to Hal Robert like Nash made major
  contributions to three fields game theory,
  algebraic geometry, and nonlinear operator
  theory.
• Nashs son, John Charles Nash, inherited the
  disease.
• Nash himself liked the play when seeing it at the
  age of 73. (ref. Audrey)

6
Comments?

• The lines between genius, solitude and madness
• short-lived genius vs. long-term solitary work,
  which can happen to any academic pursuit
• I-Scene 3 It' not about big ideas. It's work.
  you've got to chip away at a problem.
• Maybe these are dominant types, but dont turn
  them into stereotypes. e.g. "Geek (boring and
  not fashionable), "nerd (unattractive, socially
  awkward), "wonk (a person who works or studies
  too much) "Dilbert," "paste-eater.

7
The Play and the Film

• More dramatic and emotional intense
• Focused more on Catherines relation with Hal
• Claire seems more calculative

8
Added to the film Scenes outside the house

• the church memorial scene (chap 5)
• Catherine at school
• The Airport scene
• Catherines sense of guilt
• The scene where both Catherine and Robert are
  busy working ? Coexistence of the fathers and
  the daughters proofs. (chap 13 124)
• Catherines expression of guilt
• A. ? more dramatic
• B. ? more emotional intensity

9
Deleted from the Play

• I scene 3 -- About Sophie Germain in the 18th
  century, who wrote to a male mathematician with a
  pseudonym. Later
• Finding out that he was a woman, he wrote to her
  "A taste for the mysteries of numbers is
  excessively rare, but when a person of the sex
  which, according to our customs and prejudices,
  most encounter infinitely more difficulties than
  men to familiarize herself with these thorny
  researches, succeeds nevertheless in penetrating
  the most obscure parts of them, then without a
  doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite
  extraordinary talents, and superior genius."
•      (Now self-conscious) I memorized it...
• Claire excerpt pp. 20-21
• Roberts views of Chicago in September excerpt
  pp. 15

10
Roberts Interest in Students and their Browsing

• (Act 2 scene 1) I love Chicago in September.
  Perfect skies. Sailboats on the water. Cubs
  losing. Warm, the sun still hot... with the
  occasional blast of Arctic wind to keep you on
  you toes, remind you of winter. Students coming
  back, bookstore full, everyboddy busy.
•     I was in a bookstore yesterday. Completely
  full, students buying books... browsing...

11
The Film Double plotlines
The play moves back and forth in Act II between
the past (scenes 1 and 4 four years ago) and
the present

• Past Catherines bumping into Hal
• Past Catherines going to school
• Catherines and Roberts working

• Presentright after the death of the father
• Present discovery of the book
• Present work on checking the proof (11940)
  Catherines collapse

12
Discussion Questions

• Proof What does the title mean? What are the
  moments of proof in the film?
• Family Relations How do the two sisters
  (Catherine and Claire) relate to each other?
  How do they differ in their ways of thinking and
  their relations to the father?
• Memory What is bothering Catherine feel about
  Robert? Why does she say at one point I stole
  it from him?
• Gender Relations How are Catherine and Hal
  related to each other both professionally and
  personally? Why cant they trust each other
  until the end?
• Mathematical Proof Madness What does its
  being elegant mean? What does the film say
  about the madness of Robert? How is
  mathematical proof different from or similar to
  literary analysis?

13
Moments of Doubts and Proof (Validation)

• In the following four cases, complete trust is
  difficult, since there is always room for doubt
  and miscommunication.
• Catherines suspicion of Hals taking away some
  notebook. (Hal does have a notebook in his coat
  pocket)
• Whether Harold Dobbs exists or not (chap 4
  2028) (Claire suspicious, and Catherine
  overreacting to both the policemen and her
  sister.)

14
Moments of Proof (Validation)

• (Whether Catherines dress is good or not)
• Whether their night together is good or not The
  2nd Morning (chap 7 3945)
• Who wrote the proof, Robert or Catherine e.g
  Roberts notebook, handwriting, Catherines lack
  of education (suspicion of womens abilities),
  her closeness to her father.

15
Proof and Trust

• Symbols key to lock away her work, to release
  it
• Coffee Claires way of care-taking

16
Family Relations Catherine and Claire

• Claire -- efficient, practical, and successful
  sister, not as negative in the play as she is in
  the film.
• has made a career in New York as a currency
  analyst.
• feels responsible for Catherine's welfare and
  wants her to move to New York ? she is caring but
  unable to understand Catherine (always suspecting
  that Catherine has mental problems), while
  sometimes Catherine does over-react.
• Suspects that Catherine inherits Roberts mental
  instability.
• Her argument with Catherine over how to care for
  their father. ? She has a point, though maybe
  Catherines sacrifice may be a blessing in
  disguise.
• In the film, she is presented as more pragmatic,
  making lists all the time and checking things out
  when they are done.

17
Catherines Breakthrough

• Guilt over her fathers lack of accomplishment
  during his remission over her own
  accomplishment, which is encouraged by the
  father.
• Released from her past and her sense of guilt
• How many days have I lost? How can I get back to
  the place where I started? I'm outside a house.
  Trying to find my way in. But it is locked and
  the blinds are down. And I've lost the key. And I
  can't remember what the rooms look like or where
  I put anything. And if I dare go in inside. I
  wonder... will I ever be able to find my way out?
  
• Not sure if she can make it.
• She still takes the initiative
• to talk through her proof
• with Hal.

18
Roberts Last Work

• X cold
• X Sept
• 4 months of cold
• Infinite coldness
• 1. Sept full bookstore
• 2. Never full otherwise

• "Let X equal the quantity of all quantities of X.
  Let X equal the cold. it's cold in December. The
  months of cold equal November through February.
  There are four months of cold and four of heat,
  leaving four months of indeterminate temperature.
  In February it snow. In March the lake is a lake
  of ice. In September the students come back and
  the bookstores are full. Let X equal the month of
  full bookstores. The number of books approaches
  infinity as the number of months of cold
  approaches four. I will never be as cold now as I
  will in the future. The future of cold is
  infinite. The future of heat is the future of
  cold. The bookstores are infinite and so are
  never full except in September..."

ambiguities
19
Mathematics and Art

• Mathematics the studies of numbers to formulate
  theorems ????????????,?????????,??Theorem????????
  ??????Theory??????????????????????,??????Theorem??
  ???,??????????????????(???)
• Literature digs out the complexities of human
  lives
• Similarities search for elegant form/ways of
  telling their truths.
• John Madden an elegant proof//story-telling//film
  -making make it shorter, make it better, more
  economical the simpler way, the most
  compressed way, the most transparent way

20
Reference

• Bryan Aubrey, Critical Essay on Proof, in Drama
  for Students, Vol. 21, Thomson Gale, 2005.
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