Educational Media Reviews Online

This set of three discs provides a relatively non-technical introduction to prime numbers and an enigma that has haunted mathematics: how are primes distributed among other numbers? These programs are based on the book The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics (Harper, 2004) by Marcus Du Sautoy; Professor Du Sautoy is the young, hip narrator, who uses humor and enthusiasm to communicate. He is a mathematician whose publications are mostly on zeta functions, which receive a lot of attention in the second and third segments. Each disk starts with a brief statement of the importance of primes and can be viewed separately. The camera lingers on numbers in our everyday environment, e.g., house and auto numbers, on clothing, etc., and there are location shots from Greece to Las Vegas. These add to the visual appeal of the films but don't always add to the content. The mathematics used in these discs is basic arithmetic, though some understanding of the infinity of numbers is required. The films take an historic approach with many brief statements from European and American mathematicians. History and biography take equal time with mathematics. The narrator uses occasional British English, e.g., “naught” for zero. Du Sautoy distinguishes between conjecture and proof, an important insight for those studying mathematics.

From the Greeks to Gauss
The film starts by stating the importance of primes, calling their distribution “the greatest unsolved problem of mathematics.” Following Euclid’s discovery that there is an infinite number of prime numbers, fifteen-year-old Carl Friedrich Gauss took the next step in the late eighteenth century.

From Riemann to Ramanujan
This disc begins with German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, part of the trend to an abstract mathematics in the early 1800s. He used three-dimensional graphs of the algebraic zeta function as “landscapes” and “surfaces.” The film uses animation to show the landscape Riemann explored to create a hypothesis regarding the location of zero values. Unfortunately, Du Sautoy does not clearly establish the connection between the Riemann Hypothesis and the distribution of prime numbers. The second half explores the story of self-taught Indian mathematician S. Ramanujan and his English mentor G. H. Hardy.

From Turing to Tomorrow
Alan Turing was the brilliant British mathematician who helped crack the German Enigma code, hastening the end of World War II. Turing tried to prove the Riemann Hypothesis false using a mechanical computer, leading to his essential work on programmable electronic computers. We then jump to the 1970s, when a chance meeting between a mathematician and a physicist led to the discovery that the distribution of zeros in the zeta function is remarkably similar to nuclear energy levels. This discovery is tantalizing but has not led to any further insights. The film goes on to stress the importance of prime numbers for encryption and Internet commerce. A sequence of Du Sautoy driving to Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study uses Green Day’s songAmerican Idiot. The song contains profanity in its lyrics, though I couldn't distinguish them here. This segment ends with speculation by mathematicians and some disagreement on a future proof of the Riemann Hypothesis.

No discs had any extras nor were there menus. Although the packaging says it is closed captioned, I was unable to view the captions on three different DVD players. The discs are for sale separately or as a set.