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Psychotic Millennium: A Math-Inspired Monologue by Tim Gore

Audience:

Tags: millennium-problemsriemann-hypothesis

“Psychotic Millennium” is a cross between a one-man play, a philosophical TED talk, and a classroom math lesson. It is a highly theatrical romp through probably my favorite math story of all time: the story of the Millennium Problems, the tantalizing million dollar prizes for solving them, and the man who (spoilers!) heroically solved one and subsequently disappeared (more or less). This video is an edited recording of this play’s 3 public performances from just a few weeks ago. One of the inspirations for writing this play was actually Grant Sanderson’s TED talk about the importance of “story” to math engagement — as someone who has always loved theatre, I was excited by the possibility of creating something that would tease out the “story” behind some of my favorite math to weave together my passions for both math and theatre. As I stated in the playbill for the show, I have always had friends who hated math, which always made me a bit sad, because I felt like the “math” they hated was different from the math that I had always loved. I felt like if I could just show them a little bit of why I loved math, then maybe they wouldn’t hate it so much. Because of this, I made every effort to make this show as accessible as possible, even to a more “math-skeptical” audience, with the goal that anyone with a basic understanding of the main math operations, and maybe some introductory algebra, could follow everything I was saying. (Although I made sure to include plenty of fun tidbits for the math lovers as well.) I also endeavored to include enough entertaining anecdotes that even those who didn’t quite follow everything could still enjoy the performance. As may become clear from watching the show, I don’t really go too deep into the Millennium Problems themselves (except, perhaps, for one), but I more so use the story behind them to engage the audience and get them to buy into an exploration of some other fun math. Although this is somewhat of an unconventional submission to this contest, I have a strong belief in the power of the story I tell in this show, and I hope that it can inspire just a little bit more confidence and enthusiasm in even the most math-hating among us. Thank you for your consideration!

Analytics

5.27 Overall score*

105 Rank

9 Votes

5 Comments

Comments

Good energy and was fun, but the concept of the video was hard to follow, perhaps an introduction would have set up the audience better.

2.8

Although I appreciate the idea behind this, a maths style dramatic performance is a fascinating concept I don’t think it was carried out well here.

The only one of the Millennium problems I can understand well enough to comment on is P vs NP. I understand that for this presentation a simplified version is required however using square root is a bad example. How do you square root a large number? This is a continuous function anyway . The travelling salesman or closest string problem could easily be fitted in to this presentation.

Ignoring the other Millennium problems because I don’t understand them well enough to comment. The dramatic presentation is in itself bad as far as I understand. Although I am no expert in performing arts. I can however say with some certainty that it was filmed from a distance and the visuals were hard to read. The performance was directed towards the audience and it seemed the camera was put there as an after thought. It didn’t seem like any thought was giving to adapting the script for filming for youtube.

I’m giving a low grade based on not being able to enjoy the performance due to these problems. Not because the performance idea in itself was bad.

The energy and the idea is good but the presentation and execution is not together.

As a fellow aspiring actor, I can appreciate the time and dedication it took to construct and produce this production. People don’t always appreciate how much courage it takes to put yourself in front of people for several hours at a time and reenacting carefully practiced and choreographed movements and lines over and over again.

I think just the uniqueness of this endeavor is enough to put it a head above the rest. I know a lot of people will be turned off by the length, and many others will be turned off by its format, but for those who are willing to give it a chance this is a wonderful experimental little venture into communicating to non-math enthusiasts why people love math so much.

I’ll probably post more in-depth critiques in the YouTube comments later!

7.8

This performance has a great mix of humor, storytelling, and math content. Well done!

Really unique submission! Lots of effort put into it. I liked it a lot. I wish I had your confidence in public speaking :)