Comments on: It’s My Turn

By: Walt

Walt — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:00:18 +0000

To a non-mathematical audience, would it be clear that she actually answers his objections? And there’s the bit at the end of the clip where he patronizes her about her own research and suggests that she’s gotten as far as she’s going to, and he’ll get much further. If you don’t know that she answered his objections, you might think that his objections show that she really is over her head.

By: Todd Trimble

Todd Trimble — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:21:38 +0000

I agree. His objections are almost like a Greek chorus; they raise points which need to be thought through by anyone first encountering the proof.

By: John Armstrong

John Armstrong — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:18:47 +0000

It isn’t clear to a mathematician that he doesn’t know what he’s taking about, either. His objections are absolutely canonical, and this exact scene plays out hundreds of times each semester. Those are exactly the points that should be raised by a careful verifier, and Clayburgh’s responses are exactly the correct answers.

But yes, he’s obnoxious about it, likely in part because especially at that time women were extremely rare in math departments.

By: Todd Trimble

Todd Trimble — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 02:18:49 +0000

There’s a snippet of mathematics toward the end as well, but I barely remember it (and I don’t think I could possibly force myself to sit through this movie; what I caught looked unbearably bad). I think we’re given to understand the Jill Clayburgh is a finite group theorist, and at the end she sketches an idea to obnoxious grad student Cooperman (Daniel Stern) for the problem she’s been working on, and he scribbles something quickly in his notebook, and says something supportive like, “Right! And if that’s correct, then that would mean the quotient is abelian! This is brilliant!” And she chuckles at him indulgently and tells him to slow down; there’s plenty of time to work through the details.

By: Mugizi Robert Rwebangira

Mugizi Robert Rwebangira — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:47:07 +0000

For the record, I don’t think it is clear at all to a non-mathematician that the student doesn’t know what he is talking about (at least it wasn’t clear to me when I watched). He just seems a bit obnoxious and a know it all, but presumably that was enough for the film’s purposes.

By: Fredrik Meyer

Fredrik Meyer — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:42:57 +0000

It’s even on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etbcKWEKnvg