Hacker Cinema
Beautiful Young Minds
2007 · Film · documentary · 90 min
Directed by Morgan Matthews
This BAFTA nominated documentary tells the story of some of the brightest mathematical brains of a generation. Each year, exceptionally gifted teenagers from over 90 countries compete for medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad. The film follows a group of brilliant teenagers as they battle it out to become the chosen six selected to represent the UK.
2 positive1 negativefrom 3 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
3 comments on Hacker News
In the early 90s, George Csicsery made a film about Erdős called "N is a Number" which is worth watching. You can find information on that video, along with a few lectures by Erdős and a film about his 100th birthday at zalafilms.com.
I enjoy watching Csicsery's works. For example, his film "Hard Problems" shows a respect for the IMO competition and its participants that I feel the similar BBC documentary "Beautiful Young Minds" does not.
He seems like a genius (in the same way that most IMO competitors are math geniuses -- not necessarily Einstein genius though). With that said, bright 12 year olds aren't that uncommon. I mean to his parents or even a given city he might be uncommon. But every year you can probably find a handful of them in the US or China for every age group.
A good movie is Beautiful Young Minds that follows a group of UK high school students who prepare for the IMO. In particular there is a very bright and confident student with Asperger's. While he could probably give a similar talk at a similar age, it is important to note that he doesn't make the UK's IMO team. He's bright enough that the average non-academic probably can't tell when he knows what he's talking about vs when he doesn't.
I suspect the professor at Princeton heard some ambitious, if not naive statements. Wanted to encourage, but not to give validation to the statements.
I don't sense a scam or over promotion. But I can imagine as a parent when you have a child this bright it can almost be overwhelming. You can't really guide the child directly and there's always a bit of fear that you're not properly nurturing the child.
If you can find it, Beautiful Young Minds is a great documentary about the British team for the International Math Olympiad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Young_Minds