Page 1 of 3
Its title makes it sound a little dull, but this documentary set will thrill its intended audience to no end....
Acorn Media / 484 Minutes / 2009 / Unrated / Street Date: January 15, 2013
I know what you're thinking: you're wondering what could possibly be more exciting than a DVD box set entitled The Story of Math. I mean, who in their lives and careers really gets enough math?
In any case, the vast majority of viewers will instantly run screaming from a release like this one, but for our fellow nerds who have a relative fascination with the edition's conceit, this thing's a powderkeg. In it, we follow Marcus du Sautoy, an Oxford mathematics professor, who guides us through not only the concepts and import of math in its multiple evolutionary forms over the millennia, but also what it all means.
Believe it or not, the results are marvelously intriguing. These episodes are neither obtuse nor simplistic: The Story of Math is a mesmerizing fantasia, a multi-part documentary that catalogs both the applications developed by various civilizations and the civilizations themselves. The result is a nearly eight-hour affair that is smart, effective, illuminating, and somehow even transcendent at times. It's math-geek catnip.