Yesterday was an official holiday at UCSB. I went to see the new Cohen brothers movie: A serious man.
It is about a physics professor in the late 60′s who is facing tenure and is besieged by all kinds of things that make life not worth living. It is a very dark comedy, in a sense about the meaning of life (or the lack of it). For some strange reason I felt at home in the movie (never mind the fact that I belong to the category of people who can spot errors in the uncertainty formulas as they’re being written on the blackboard, or maybe I didn’t spot it because afterwards it was ok). I recommend that if you are physicist that you go see the movie. You might also feel at home there.
I also noticed the formula glitch. From what I remember, he writes an equation, but an exponent that should be outside an expectation value is inside, or vice-versa. In the immediate next shot, this has been magically fixed.
It might have been intentional, it’s in a dream sequence (the full blackboard shot is awesome) and Gopnik might be correcting himself in his dream.
I loved the movie, but in some ways it was even darker than ‘no country for old men’.
Funny thing, is when I’m dreaming, I can’t do the simplest mathematics. For example, I can’t convert from degrees F to C while dreaming, but I can do it awake while carrying on a conversation. I suspect this says something about which parts of the brain are active during dreams.
(Very minor nit): Cohen –> Coen
Hi David,
Haven’t visited your shores for quite some time. Thoroughly enjoyed the ‘Summertime’ jazz and other posts.
The Coen brothers film sounds interesting – I’ll check it out.
Best Regards,
Des