Hacker Cinema
Agora
2009 · Film · 127 min
Directed by Alejandro Amenábar
A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria and her relationship with her slave Davus, who is torn between his love for her and the possibility of gaining his freedom by joining the rising tide of Christianity.
5 positive5 neutralfrom 10 commenters
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10 comments on Hacker News
The sieges and fires you are referring to were hundreds of years before the supposed destruction at the hands of Christian mobs (e.g. as depicted in the movie Agora or in Sagan’s Cosmos). The latter is unsupported.
What you say sounds influenced by the movie Agora: https://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2016/03/the-library-of-alexandria-destroyed-by-an-angry-mob-with-torches-not-very-likely/
The 2009 film Agora, starring Rachel Weisz, has a portrayal of the period. Of course it's not a historical document and subject to interpretation, but it is one perspective at least. Also there's a novel about Julian by Gore Vidal — I haven't read it but Julian was the last pagan emperor who unsuccessfully tried to receive Hellenic religion and stem the tide of Christianity.
Or, if there's production budget, Hypatia.
There was:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186830/
Einstein is probably a terrible example here because in his day he was regarded as a pop culture icon so there’s plenty about him in film [1]. That’s not even considering that he’s had plenty of excellent biographies written about him. Agora with Rachel Weisz is an excellent one about Hypatia.
Could we do better as a society? Maybe. To do that though you’d have to bring these stories into film classrooms and get students inspired. But first you have to make the stories inspiring and a lot of them aren’t thaaat much except for the advancements they provided to the field and that’s harder to convey. Maybe Leibniz and Newton would be a good rivalry on the screen.
[1] https://www.themoviedb.org/keyword/8689-albert-einstein/movie
Hacker Culture, to me atleast is somewhat broad.
Here are some places where I found good representations:
1. Halt and Catch Fire: 70s/80s tech scene. Full stack hackers building products, companies. Depicts the hackers, code monkeys, visionary types, managers, financers- everyone. Also shows the transition of the business scene from analog to digital.
2. Westworld (Season 1 only) is brilliant. It depicts the ambition, the hubris involved in creating something new and grand.
3. The Travelling Salesman: P vs NP is solved. What are the implications, what are the uses, how will the State react? What is the role of the people imvolved?
4. Primer: Mind bending movie on time machine.
5. and 6. Imitation Game and A Beautiful Mind: I believe most people on HN will like these.
7. Agora is a hidden gem not many know about. It is anout Hypatia.
8. Dangerous Knowledge is a documentary about paradigm changing science. Godel, Turing, Boltzmann are covered.
9. Fractals is also a nice documentary with interviews from Mendelbrot.
10. Codebreaker is a mich more accurate biography of Turing that covers other aspects of his, not limited to his codebreaking and homosexuality.
11. Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz: very nice and left a deep impression in me.
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I am yet to watch:
1. Hidden Figures
2. Stand and Deliver
3. I'm In
4. TPB: AFK
5. Pirates of Silicon Valley
6. Triumph of the Nerds
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Harvard Professor Oliver Knill has a list and clips from movies where math appears: https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/
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I came to know a lot of these movies through Kagi search and Reddit search. "Best movies for mathematicians and computer scientists" and similar searches.
Well, the wikipedia article suggested that it was because they believed she was responsible for Orestes's "unwillingness to reconcile with Cyril". That suggests they were provoked by the content of whatever she was saying to Orestes so if it had been for anything mathematical or philosophical, it was not recorded that way but I don't think there is a lot of evidence to go that route.
Here is a blog post by a historian about a movie that dealt with the subject, if you have the patience to read through it all. http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html
And another review in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/apr/22/agora-review
Good luck finding it in theatres, of course.
I watched Agora tonight. It was good. I didn't know a movie could cause me to dislike religion even more than I already did.
Did you see Agora yet? In it the mathematician Hypatia in 4th century Egypt (played by Rachel Weisz) makes the radical announcement that circles are not really shapes in their own right, they're just a type of ellipse, and everyone wigs out - everything they know about astronomy and physics will have to be rethought. Anyway, awesome film.