When we think about the character/behavior of a mathematician, is the default moody/unsociable or absent-minded or obsessed with math?
Instances of actual conversations with me
X:“Sherli, you are not like other mathematicians.”
Me: “Huh?”
Y: “Are you reading a math textbook?”
Me: “No, a fiction book.”
Y: “How do you have time for anything other than math?”
Me: “Huh?”
Z: “Wait, you want to serve in student government? Why? When will you have time?”
Me: “Huh?”
A: “ Wow, a math major who is willing to be in student government.”
Me: “This is just ridiculous.”
These snippets of conversations got me thinking. What is this magical mathematician they are talking about? How is it I missed the definition of what a mathematician should do for fun, or even read? Did they hand it out in some orientation I missed during my degrees in India and in the US?
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a mathematician is a specialist or expert in mathematics. In Malayalam, ഗണിതശാസ്ത്രജ്ഞൻ (gaṇitaśāstrajñan) is defined in the same way. The definitions are straightforward. You know math, you are a mathematician but the additional definitions or depictions of mathematicians in popular English and Malayalam media, particularly movies and TV, is what I want to discuss in this post.
On using the search terms ‘mathematicians english movies’ in Google, I got the following images and an interesting article from medium.com about thirteen movies about mathematicians.
The most popular English movies were Good Will Hunting, Imitation Game, The Man who Knew Infinity, A Beautiful Mind, three of which were biopics.
All the movies/images show mathematicians who are surrounded by blackboards or numbers. Their entire life is defined by math, are socially awkward, and have no life to speak of. Three of the movies are biopics which show only one view of the mathematicians.
When I did the same for Malayalam (‘mathematicians malayalam movies’), I got the following
In the first row of the image, the most relevant Malayalam movies about mathematics or mathematicians are Hey Jude, Spadikam, Ramanujan (this one is Tamil but had a Malayalam translation) and Shakunthala Devi. The latter two are again biopics.
The first movie is Hey Jude about “a mathematical genius and an oceanography enthusiast. Jude has poor social skills and lacks the maturity for his age. He has no friends and always gets on the wrong side with his father” (from Wikipedia).
A brief synopsis of Spadikam- “Thomas Chacko, or "Aadu Thoma" as he is widely known, is notorious for being the undefeated champion in his confrontations. He is the son of retired school headmaster Chacko, the President's medal winner in mathematics. Unlike his father, Thomas was not good at math, but was a child prodigy in mechanical and electronic gadgetry.”
What I remember most about Spadikam, was this dialogue by the father character, “without mathematics, bhoomi verum oru vattappojyam (Without mathematics, earth is just a big zero)”. It became a very popular dialogue in Kerala to show how mathematicians are obsessed with mathematics and they can be harsh taskmasters.
A English TV show Numbers resonated with me because it depicted the mathematician having a life outside of mathematics. It gave a view of the man having a social life and having additional interests to math.
Who defines these stereotypes? Can we blame only the media? Or is it the way society defines mathematics and mathematicians in school, university, or any other walks of life? Or are we mathematicians to blame in having very rigid definitions of how a good mathematician should behave?
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