German Film: Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World)
Movie screening || In German with English subtitles. || All interested are welcome!
Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World) || 2012 || Directed by Detlev Buck
Based on the bestselling novel by Daniel Kehlmann (German and English version in Dabney Library).
The film is a lavish illustrator of the worlds of mathematics and science and a motivator to look deeper and enjoy this movie whether you are a scientist or not. Based on the highly successful novel that contrasts the life of two eminent scientists, the mathematician and founder of numbers theory, C.F. Gauss (F.D. Fitz), and explorer of South America, Alexander von Humboldt (A. A. Schuch), the film follows the two brilliant and eccentric scientists on their very different life paths. They both are from Brunswick in Germany and of similar age. Gauss rises from poverty. Humboldt is privileged. Gauss doesn't like to leave his office and rarely travels. Humboldt does practically nothing but travel. They briefly meet as youths but only meet again at an advanced age. Partially fictitious, this is a story of contemporaries juxtaposed by birth and passion.
Maybe it inspires you to add the biographies of the two masterminds and the novel to your reading list.