How much do you think a mainstream movie is going to take to discuss mathematical ideas that are inaccessible even to most working mathematicians?
I read the book this movie is based on when it was first published 25 years ago, the author does a good job of summarizing some of the main ideas for a general audience, but this portion of the book (which is relatively small) could not possibly be covered in a movie like this, it would take too long and would not be interesting to the audience.
However, this movie made far more effort to discuss the mathematics involved, in an accurate way, than either A Beautiful Mind or Good Will Hunting. Indeed, the math in Good Will Hunting is especially bad because the supposedly 'unsolved problem' that Will Hunting solves at the beginning of the movie is actually a common exercise given to undergraduates, and indeed, is simple enough to be solved by high school students.
The movie focuses primarily on Hardy's work on the problem of partitions, which is accurate because that really is the main area where Hardy was inspired by Ramanujan's work and the main area where Hardy is best remembered by working mathematicians today.
And it was the right move because partitions are very simple and easy to explain to a general audience., and they not only explained what partitions are but did a good job of explaining why Ramanujan's contributions were significant.
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