The Music of the Primes

The mystery that has confounded mathematicians for centuries is the riddle that surrounds the distribution of prime numbers. Primes are fundamental to mathematics; they are the basic blocks from which all other numbers can be built. Yet they seem to surface entirely randomly among the number line. But are primes truly random or is there some hidden pattern?

Marcus du Sautoy presents the story of those who have tried to capture one of the greatest unsolved problems of mathematics, the pattern of prime numbers. Filmed on location in America, India, Greece, Germany and England, the film includes interviews with some of the world's leading mathematicians.

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The Story of Maths
The Music of the Primes

How Long is a Piece of String? (BBC Horizon)

Alan Davies attempts to answer the proverbial question: how long is a piece of string? But what appears to be a simple task soon turns into a mind-bending voyage of discovery where nothing is as it seems. An encounter with leading mathematician Marcus du Sautoy reveals that Alan's short length of string may in fact be infinitely long. When Alan attempts to measure his string at the atomic scale, events take an even stranger turn. Not only do objects appear in many places at once, but reality itself seems to be an illusion. Ultimately, Alan finds that measuring his piece of string could - in theory at least - create a black hole, bringing about the end of the world.

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Precision: The Measure of All Things

What Makes a Genius?

What Makes a Genius? is a BBC documentary presented by Marcus du Sautoy, exploring what makes someone a genius. Marcus du Sautoy wants to know if geniuses are just an extreme version of himself - or whether their brains are fundamentally different. He meets some remarkable individuals - Tommy, an obsessive artist who uses his whole house as his canvas; Derek: blind, autistic, and a pianist with apparently prodigious gifts; Claire who is also blind, but whose brain has learnt to see using sound.

Marcus is shown how babies have remarkable abilities which most of us lose as teenagers. He meets a neuroscientist who claims he has evidence of innate ability, a scientist who's identified a gene for learning, and Dr. Paulus, who has discovered how to sharpen the brain... by electrically turbo-charging it. (from bbc.co.uk)

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