Movie Math

One important aspect of being a math teacher is getting students to recognize the usefulness of mathematics and possibly inspiring students to pursue a career in STEM. One way to achieve this goal is to provide students with positive role models in STEM they can look up to. Being a “mathie” and a movie buff myself, I have seen a number of movies that inspire me as a mathematician and can do the same for students in my classes. Below are some films that I can see showing or referring to my senior classes.         

This first film is not only inspiring to students pursuing STEM but specifically to female students. Hidden Figures is a recent Oscar nominated film celebrating women who have made significant contributions to math and science. The story follows African-American women working at NASA as Mathematicians and a Physicist. These women were integral to the success of sending the first American astronaut, John Glenn, into orbit. Although this movie takes place in the 60’s it demonstrates the gender disparity within the field of STEM. For female students it shows that yes there are opportunities in this field for them and they should be confident in their own intelligence as well as their passion that this career is for them despite being outnumbered by males.   

The Imitation Game depicts the historical events during World War II as British intelligence agency hires mathematicians to break a Nazi code. As much as this is a World War II movie, the focus is on the group of mathematicians that are on the clock to build a machine that will break the code. This movie proves the usefulness of mathematics and may intrigue students to further investigate the world of combinatorics. The movie also provides a strong female lead that uses her intelligence to help solve the code.      

The Man Who Knew Infinity is a movie for true math people. The plot surrounds the life of now famous mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who originally travelled from India to England to work with a professor in the math department. Ramanujan had produced solutions to many unsolvable problems as well as providing proofs for his own theorems. This movie demonstrates the endless possibilities of mathematics. It would be useful to show this movie to your grade 12 students as it explains the importance in proofs and providing information to back up your calculations as this is what they will most likely be exposed to in university.  

Moneyball is a light hearted film which once again demonstrates the daily applications of mathematics. The movie is about the general manager of the Oakland A’s Baseball team that decides to incorporate a statistical approach to recruiting and running his team. This mathematical approach to baseball is now being applied to many of the MLB teams today. For students who love sport and math this movie shows that there are a vast number of job opportunities in mathematics and there are opportunities to work in a job that combines your passion for sport and math.  

Lastly, 21 is one of the classic films combining probability, chance and crime. This fictional movie follows a university student who is recruited by his professor to join an elite “math club”. What this student was not expecting was to find out that the aim of this club is for the students to use their math skills and take them to Las Vegas to win big at the games. For any Data Management course, this movie shows and explains a number of the concepts learned and then expends on them further.