Friday, July 17, 2015

Travelling Salesman

My kindle stick noticed I like nerd movies, so it recommended this one. It's a simple idea -- four mathematicians hired by the government solve P vs. NP thus potentially defeating all known computer security. The movie is mostly a circular argument about whether it is ethical for one government to keep this secret. In an attempt to create interest, much of it is filmed in shaky-cam (yecch), and it includes a gratuitous dream sequence. Anyway, I watched Pi (in the theater, even), so why wouldn't I watch this. It was corny and silly and unrealistic, but there was at least a little math in it. Would have been better with more math. Or more action. Or both. Still -- any movie that mentions Hardy is alright by me. They should have used this song in the credits, though. 

1 comment:

  1. I saw this. Had potential but fizzled. Wish they'd look at the other aspects of p=np besides encryption. Essentially it would mean we'd be able to compute anything in a reasonable amount of time.

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