The Rise of the Nerd?

Clifford at 12:20 am, May 9th, 2006

For years, action movies stuck to a very specific division of labour. Your action hero did the “action” stuff…you know, shooting and hitting and the getting of the girl (yes, the action hero was most often male). Meanwhile, from time to time there would be a point in the plot where some technical knowledge was needed. Then the socially awkward technical person (Geek, Nerd, whatever) would be on the set for a while, and they would hack into the computer, make the modifications to the car, shut down the reactor, etc.

Then several years ago things began to change. Did you notice it? Action heroes began to start learning ~~our skills~~ the skills of the nerd. It became ok - cool even- for the muscle-bound hero to know some technical stuff! I remember one key movie that for me at least represented the high-visibility turning point. It was the 1996 movie “Eraser”, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the time he was sort of the CEO of Action Heroes, Inc, right? There’s some scene in which he’s fresh from shooting up everything in sight, with a cannon on each arm, etc, etc, and then at a climatic moment (I forgot the plot details which led to this), he sits down at a computer to do some crucial task or other! My friend Samantha, who was at the cinema with me, spotted this. She laughed out loud at that point, and explained afterwards why she thought that was significant, and she was right.

Of course, several of you are thinking “what’s the big deal?”. Perhaps you’re too young to remember how it was. That’s because now everybody in the movies uses computers routinely, sending email, surfing the web, checking message boards, grabbing files from other remote computers…. and, just as in society at large, Hollywood caught on to the fact that everybody is much more comfortable with the computer. A little technical knowledge in computers is no longer the province of the nerd. We’re all nerds now. And so nerdiness is a little diminished, as a result. Of course it then just gets redefined, since there must always be an outsider, to allow the insiders to better define themselves. So even the biggest action stars started using computers alongside their guns.

Well, I saw another significant moment last night, I think. Maybe the next step.

I was working on a paper during the evening and had the urge to see Mission Impossible III at the Cinerama Dome at the Arclight. I love seeing action movies in the Dome, and thought that it could be fun. So I booked a seat for a late-night show and took some time out from my paper-writing (best not to tell my collaborators…it was supposed to be ready in time for the morning) to nip down to see it at 11:10pm. There was a great late-night crowd there, and it was a lot of fun down at the Arclight, as always. Did not even matter that the movie was… ok, at best. I was not as impressed with it as I was prepared to be. Too many long scenes with Tom Cruise staring into the eyes of whateverhernameis in slow motion from endless different angles. I went there to see things blow up for goodness sake! And see some clever deceptions, double-crossings, hoodwinkings, bamboozlings….etc. This is Mission Impossible!

shanghai skyline Well, where was I? At some point, Tom Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, is in Shanghai with some of the rest of his Impossible Mission Force buddies, and they are trying to figure out how to get into some super-secure building (part of the skyline to the right) in about 30 minutes. Cruise is hell-bent on doing it (for reasons I won’t go into in case you want to see the film) and starts planning a daring approach. He starts drawing the various buildings, noting the distances between them and their heights, and then he starts writing equations! He’s trying to figure out something or other to do with swinging from one building to another, and he’s -I repeat- writing equations. And mumbling to himself a bit as he calculates, if I recall correctly!

I’ve no idea what the equations were (you don’t get much of a look), but I thought it was hilarious, since in my Physics 151 class, I’m always joking with them that I’m teaching them important skills they will use out there in the field, when called upon to save the day…”draw the diagram”….”pick your coordinates”….”write the equations”, etc. The usual drill. There was even a Chloe O’Brien question on on the second Midterm this year…..(Chloe is a standard old-fashioned geek - you know, really smart, socially awkward, etc- the one that everyone really should be rooting for on the show “24″, by the way.)

Now come on. You have to admit this is a turning point. Tom Cruise is riding as high as an action hero as Arnie was a decade ago. Him writing equations now is just as significant as Arnie sitting down to scan the hard drive on the PC back then. Who knows what will happen over the next ten years, then? Action heroes might be doing linear algebra, differential calculus, applying theorems in number theory, all to save the world of course….. between explosions and shoot-em-ups of course.

Or not.

-cvj

(P.S. I got home and got back to work at 2:00am, and worked on the paper until it was done, getting to sleep at 4:30am… so I was not slacking, in case any of my collaborators are keeping count!)

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61 Comments on “The Rise of the Nerd?” rss feed

Jack on May 9th, 2006 at 4:03 am

I wondered why your paper mentioned spiderman. Better edit that out in version 2……
Alejandro on May 9th, 2006 at 4:58 am

I thought the turning point had been much earlier than what you say, with McGyver. Or perhaps we should classify him as being ahead of his time.
vince on May 9th, 2006 at 5:03 am

“You have been eeerased!”

Also, there was that old show Sliders about a physics graduate student inventing a device capable of sending people through a wormhole to “parallel earths”. Quinn Mallory was cool AND a physics genius. Demonstrating his physics genius, in the pilot episode, he was able to solve the “unified field theory” and on the right hand side of his equation was the missing piece, which his “double” had to write down for him: the symbol of Angstrom, divided by the symbol for infinity. Pretty nifty.
Arun on May 9th, 2006 at 7:06 am

I saw the reviews - courtesy rottentomatoes.com

“The only thing more boring than nothing happening is a lot of nothings happening.”

“”For all of the movie’s professional craft and lovely vertigo, the experience is like eating popcorn in a guillotine.”

“In the most memorable action scene, nothing happens, until Cruise unexpectedly flies out of a skyscraper window, leaving us to imagine why.”

To be fair, those were the initial reviews. The weight of reviews has shifted a little more to the positive.
Rob Knop on May 9th, 2006 at 7:12 am

I heard a talk by a professor at a small college her about the rise of the “Sexy Nerd”. She started it with the second guy from the “Man from UNCLE”– whose name I don’t know. The main action hero was supposed to be the most appealing one, but the nerd dsidekick ended up being suprirsingly popular.

Mr. Spock fits that mold too– he wasn’t supposed to be sexier than Kirk, but many found him so.

Of course, the situation may be different in popular science fiction. She pointed to John Crichton of Farscape as the ultimate expression of this. Fully action hero, fully nerd. He makes D&D and Star Trek references, is a PhD scientist and knowns ow to fix stuff, but is also clearly an action hero.

-Rob

(P.S.: is there any way I can turn off the insta-preview in the comments? My 600 MHz laptop can’t keep up with my typing rate when I comment here.)
Pacian on May 9th, 2006 at 7:37 am

I think this particular case probably has more to do with trying to justify applying the Mission: Impossible brand-name to the latest installment in the franchise. Mission: Impossible was, after all, always pretty nerdy anyway until John Woo (gawd luv’im) changed the emphasis from intricate deception to improbable stunts.

And while we’re talking about nerdy action heroes, how can we leave out Gordon Freeman, a gun-toting theoretical physicist?

I heard a talk by a professor at a small college her about the rise of the â€œSexy Nerdâ€.
I wonder how much of this is simply due to inter-breeding among nerds. As we they band together in greater numbers and gather power (for example on the Internet) are we they better able to present to the mainstream what we they find attractive? (ie. brains, glasses and a large bookcase)

She started it with the second guy from the â€œMan from UNCLEâ€â€“ whose name I donâ€™t know.
The two main characters were Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. I loved that show when I was a kid. Ilya was my favourite.
Jennifer Ouellette on May 9th, 2006 at 8:06 am

Action heros doing advanced equations? It was already happening before Cruise in MI-3. David Krumholtz’s character on NUMB3RS might not be an “action hero” in the traditional sense, but he does use very very advanced mathematics to help his G-Man brother solve crimes. There are lots of explosions in between, too — just to ensure the audience doesn’t get TOO nerdy…
Elliot on May 9th, 2006 at 8:31 am

NUMB3ERS is fun and the fact that Krumholtz character has a love life (of sorts) makes nerdiness all that more viable as a life style.
Nick Greene on May 9th, 2006 at 9:07 am

Nerds rock!

My daughter attends a Magnet high school where not only is it cool to be smart, the kids want to do well in order to fit in. Fortunately, she’s not in danger of the abuse I received.

Did anyone see the made-for-TV movie with Noah Wyle called “The Librarian: Quest for the Spear”? There’s the ultimate Nerd Action Hero. They’re filming a sequel right now.

Don’t forget the Dan Brown book, which is being released as a movie soon, “The DaVinci Code.” Dr. Robert Langdon is a real nerd action hero.
Sam Gralla on May 9th, 2006 at 9:22 am

That’s cool. However, I still miss shows like the original power rangers, where the yellow ranger was asian, the pink ranger was a girl, the black ranger was black, and the remaining rangers (red and blue) were action-hero (jock) and nerd types. I know, I know, it’s probably bad for society and all, but I still get a kick out of it =)
joseph on May 9th, 2006 at 9:52 am

I’m surprised no-one mentioned me, because I am a nerd-action hero.

…in my dreams…
Clifford on May 9th, 2006 at 10:23 am

Hi Alejandro, I’m not really talking about TV shows, but instead am talking about the major modern blockbuster action movies. There was an endless list of movies that followed that pattern I described in the first paragraph, to the extent that film-makers clearly could not see any other way of being for a long time…. Then Arnie sits down at a computer. It’s really quite startling to see for the first time. Just as it is to see Tom Cruise writing equations in what is supposed to be one of the hugest blockbusters of this year. TV shows, although full of their own formulaic grooves, broke out of that particular pattern a long time before, and require a separate analysis.

Cheers,

-cvj
Samantha on May 9th, 2006 at 11:00 am

Right! What is interesting to me is the shifting skill set in action movies.

In MI-III, math is suddenly part of the “normal” skill set of the action hero. Not something that you relegate to the nerd side-kick. And in the case of Eraser (an awful film otherwise) - this shift actually predicted a societal change.
Grimmstail on May 9th, 2006 at 11:40 am

I think the reference in comment 6 should have been to Gordan Frohman.
James Kakalios on May 9th, 2006 at 11:52 am

Nerds as Action heroes have been around for over fifty years - in comic books! The Flash was Barry Allen, police scientist, Reed Richards is the smartest scientist in the Marvel Universe (no wonder his code name is Mister Fantastic) and the Atom is Ray Palmer, Physics Professor.

In fact, Prof. Palmer gained his ability to shrink down to sub-atomic length scales when he found the one key missing ingredient for his shrinking device: a chunk of White Dwarf Star matter that had landed on Earth! Presumably since it has the word “dwarf” in its name, it possesses miniaturization properties unsuspected by astrophysicists. As Ray lifts (!) and struggles to bring the roughly 12 inch diameter rock to his car (as shown in Showcase # 34, in the 1960’s, physics professors drove Caddy convertibles), he huffs and puffs, commenting to himself that white dwarf stars are so dense because they are composed of degenerate matter.

And no wonder he’s huffing and puffing - that rock he’s lugging weighs over 50,000 tons! But this is not actually, technically, a bloober, since, after all, we physics professors are Just. That. Strong!

This is described in more detail in my book, THE PHYSICS OF SUPERHEROES. (Who says this isn’t the Marvel Age of shameless plugs?)

As to Mr. Cruise - I may have to see MI-III now. they should promote this to boost box office - come for the ’splosions, stay for the pi!

(Sorry).

Jim Kakalios
PK on May 9th, 2006 at 11:54 am

I know you’re not talking about TV, but notice how CSI-Miami has (pseudo) equations in the opening titles. For the rest this show is pants. Its parent, CSI (Las Vegas) does a much better job at glorifying Geekdom.
Ron Avitzur on May 9th, 2006 at 12:15 pm

Who can forget Real Genius? One of the greatest movie celebrations of intellectual nerdly coolness.

References to CalTech in Real Genius

- Ron Avitzur, Pacific Tech

(I may have watched that film a few too many times while studying physics, back in the day.)
JustAnotherInfidel on May 9th, 2006 at 12:44 pm

Of course nerds are cool–how else can you explain Woody Allen getting chicks?

Also, is it sooo unreasonable to make Mr. Cruise learn a few equations? He learned some Japanese for that Samurai movie, and I’m sure the same number of people (in America, at least) realized that Cruise was speaking Japanese correctly (in the Samurai movie) as realized he actually had his pluses and minuses in order…

Think about it–if he hadn’t known ANY japanese, and was just making up a bunch of syllables, who would have known?
Philip on May 9th, 2006 at 1:22 pm

Don’t forget Apollo 13.

We’re all nerds: I remember a movie from about ten years ago (can’t recall the title) starring Richard Dryfus. He’s a writer, and in the last scene, he’s finishing the Great American whatever at his office at home. He stares thoughtfully at the screen, and then reaches to turn off his computer, while the entire audience is inwardly screaming “Save it, save it, SAVE it!”
Clifford on May 9th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

JustAnotherInfidel:- You seem to be mixing up Tom Cruise the actor with Ethan Hunt the character. I’m really talking about the latter. I’m not going along the standard path that assumes that Hollywood actors are not bright people. They are skilled crafts(wo)men with a with range of intelligence, just like in any other field.

I’m talking about what images the studios allow to get out there…what they think the audience wants to pay money to see. They are not very adventurous, in general, and are very afraid of a flop on thse big movies… this is why there is not much innovation, as they really don’t like tinkering with successful stereotypes. MI-III is one of the movies the studio is looking to change its fortunes….they have a lot riding on this one movie, to some extent (although it has been overstated a lot, I suspect). But this is why it is a big deal when they do blur the lines, or change the traditional roles. They consider it a big risk. So in summary, I’m talking about the characters, and maybe to some extent the public persona of the actors. We all know that provately, the actors themselves are just as smart as the next person on the street. This is not about that.

Let me take another example: I think that the computer expert Chloe O’Brien in 24, although a stereotype, is a really excellent character… and I think she’s really the hero of the show. It is tempting to transfer my appreciation of her to the actress, Mary Lynn Rajskub, but that would be a mistake. She’s a very talented actress and plays the part well (she’s actually a professional comedian), but she -by her own admission- does not know the first thing about computers. (Sorry guys…)

So I’m definitely not talknig about the actors, I’m talking about the characters.

-cvj
adam on May 9th, 2006 at 1:53 pm

I am going to Save the World with my large collection of rpg material.
ASLI on May 9th, 2006 at 1:57 pm

I am not of you or them ,just an architect, but as I recall the ultimate sexiness of a nerd came to the screen when Dr. Emma Russel , a scientist on the verge of a cold fusion breakthrough keeps her ongoing formula in her bra! It’s the movie “the Saint” with Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue which some of you may have seen. I know she is not the action hero herself, but still a very important character with whom the hero desperately falls in love with. I am sure the movie had all kinds of factual errors, but it made the science look damn good and sexy !
JustAnotherInfidel on May 9th, 2006 at 2:02 pm

Dr. Johnson–

Sorry to confuse the characters–I haven’t seen the flick yet. And I wasn’t insinuating that Hollypeople aren’t intelligent–far from it! But if you can teach an actor Japanese, you should be able to teach him Math.

As to the types of characters that are popping up in…pop…culture, I agree with you, but I think this is just an artifact of technology’s role in our culture.

And Chloe is pretty cool on 24 (I love how she tasered that guy in the bar last week), but she’s not the hero..let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Clifford on May 9th, 2006 at 2:02 pm

James Kakalios:- Mine the archives here using the ssearch engine for lots of discussion that we’ve had about superheroes and the scientist as action here in that context. Again…. that is very different from what I’m talking about…the economic constraints are different… Nevertheless it is an interesting topic….. Just like the TV shows people mention are also interesting examples….. But I’m fascinated by the blockbuster action movie aspect for the reasons I mentioned.

Don’t go to see the movie on my account. It is not unenjoyable, but….I was not that impressed with it. I think they could have done a better job.

And the thing with the equations is about five seconds long, so if you blink you’ll miss it. So don’t go expecting long sequences where Ving Rhames’s character comments, “Uh, Ethan, you’ve got to complete the square at that point”, or “You missed a minus sign in the third term there”, or “Throw out those complex solutions, man, they’re irrelevant”. etc, etc. Maybe next Summer.

-cvj
howard on May 9th, 2006 at 2:48 pm

Philip: Ah, the wonders of the Internet! The Richard Dreyfuss movie you’re thinking of is (probably) Stand By Me. However, imdb.com claims:

The narrator does not save his work before appearing to shut off his word processor, but that’s okay, because in fact he only switches off the monitor, leaving the machine running and his work intact.

More to the point of the blog, Clifford, I’m with you about appreciating Chloe O’Brian (and the late-but-apparently-unmourned Edgar as well). And last season and this one she’s gotten out from behind the keyboard, so she also has “action” credentials now. Well, a little anyhow.

As far as seeing the lead write equations in movies, I remember a blackboard full of them in The Day The Earth Stood Still. Although come to think of it, perhaps the Michael Rennie character only corrected Sam Jaffe’s equations, and didn’t write any down himself. Perhaps the most telling bit of that movie is when, asked who is the greatest philosopher of the day, the boy names a scientist! I wonder what the average child, or adult for that matter, would respond to that question today.
Elliot on May 9th, 2006 at 3:08 pm

Howard,

No fair including aliens…
Keith Demko on May 9th, 2006 at 4:05 pm

Although I would love to believe that “M:I:III” does indeed signal the advent of nerd heros, I suspect it was instead a scene inserted at the insistence (sp?) of tomKat to counter the ample evidence from his public life that he is actually a dingbat
Sean on May 9th, 2006 at 4:06 pm

I think it’s a mistake to attempt to re-appropriate the word “nerd” as something laudable. Intelligence, education, quantitative skills, an appreciation for abstract ideas and technical details — these things are all laudable, of course. But they are only a secondary connotation of “nerd,” the primary definition of which is “a foolish, inept, or unattractive person.” I think it would be better to spread the impression (as the Hollywood examples are apparently doing) that technically competent people are not necessarily foolish, inept, or unattractive — i.e., that they are not in fact nerds at all.
adam on May 9th, 2006 at 4:28 pm

Sean’s regretting that huge collection of 80s Heavy Metal teeshirts and the sackful of polyhedral dice under his bed.
Sean on May 9th, 2006 at 4:49 pm

They’re not “dice,” they’re “Platonic solids.”

Oops…
Clifford on May 9th, 2006 at 5:38 pm

Sean, I agree in principle….except that we’re not discussing the primary definition. We are discussing the popular definition, which is closer to the one I gave at the top of the post. Or the second definition in th reference you gave.

And my point is precisely that by having the Hero adopt the skill sets normally associated with the Nerd or Geek (by the popular definition, or definition 2 of your reference), everybody eventually realizes that the disticntion is totally arbitrary. Everybody becomes a Nerd….and nobody is a Nerd. I thought that was clear. See the third paragraph of the post. It’s all there.

Cheers.

-cvj
Sean on May 9th, 2006 at 5:48 pm

My point is that the “socially inept” definition is in fact much more popular than the “scientifically adept” definition. The (only) data I have to support this is the fact that this definition appears first in the dictionary, which usually means it’s more popular.
Clifford on May 9th, 2006 at 6:28 pm

Interesting. I disagree. I think that people are much more likely to call you a nerd because you betray some reasonably technical knowledge about something, than if you’re just socially awkward. People rush to use that term almost to punish someone for being apparently “smarter” than them. The socially awkward aspect of the nerd cliche gets applied as a secondary. So I don’t think the dictionary is a good guide, at least as compared to just observing people’s reactions, and what they say.

But I could be wrong. What do others think?

-cvj
Christian H. on May 9th, 2006 at 6:52 pm

I’m pretty sure that MI:3 equation scene was a riff on “A beautiful mind”. Could be wrong, of course.
Cynthia on May 9th, 2006 at 7:05 pm

From a cultural perspective, I believe the meaning of the word “nerd” has recently evolved more towards Clifford’s definition. Perhaps there has not been a sufficient amount of time from the dictionary to publish this newly evolved definition for “nerd”.
citrine on May 9th, 2006 at 10:25 pm

Currently, ppl with technical competence (Gates, Jobs, Dell, the Google guys etc.) are often portrayed in the popular media because they are superrich. Therefore we have a transitive relation

nerd=tech savvy ^ tech savvy= $$$ ^ $$$ = sexy

therefore

nerd= sexy
Samantha on May 9th, 2006 at 11:42 pm

Sam Gralla #10

I had to go and check with my students (young people) that that was really true about the Power Ranger’s uniforms. NONE of them had noticed - that is AMAZING! And awful. And AMAZING! I have been amused by the horror of it all day.
The Ridger on May 10th, 2006 at 5:13 am

But it was only true of the very first bunch of Power Rangers - and of course the Yellow Ranger was also a girl. Later there was a Yellow Ranger who was black, a Red Ranger who was Hispanic, a Black Ranger who was Korean, and so on.
Rob Knop on May 10th, 2006 at 6:49 am

Of course, in movies, we shouldn’t forget that whatshername in the Matrix used a real SSH vulnerability to hack into a Unix machine in the second movie…. Action hero, sexy person, computer nerd, all in one. Trinity, that’s right. Heck, she’s even named after a Physic experiment! (If you want to spin the first explosion of an atomic bomb that way.)

-Rob
adam on May 10th, 2006 at 10:02 am

In ‘Independence Day’* Jeff Goldblum saves the world with nothing more than a mac laptop and the nerding skills learnt through teenage years of not getting to first base, forcing him into his parents’ basement with only his trusty computer and a floppy disk of ASCII porn for company.

*Ahead even of Star Wars in my estimation as ‘worst SF film ever’ but a long way behind Star Wars for ‘Most overrated piece of cinematic crap in history’.
Belizean on May 10th, 2006 at 10:03 am

Clifford,

Wasnâ€™t Indiana Jones a bespectacled college professor, who removed his spectacles when he switched to action mode?

[As a contrasting example of the stereotypical archeology nerd, consider James Spaderâ€™s Daniel Jackson in the movie Stargate.]

Iâ€™m not appreciating the importance of the distinction between a non-scientist action character who knows a bit about science/math/computers and a scientist character who springs into action.
Clifford on May 10th, 2006 at 11:02 am

Friends, we need to raise our game here. Let’s not go over old discussion and examples…..This is not about examples of people using computers in the movies to save the world. (Nor is it about archeologists firing a gun and swinging across ravines…….) As I said in the post, that is establishment now in even the biggest of the blockbuster movies…. (except James Bond… even in the modern films he seems technically challenged….can’t do anything without Q. Hmmmmm maybe that will change with the new relaunch?)…

… what I’m talking about is the next level: Headliner action heroes in the big blockbusters doing mathematics and physics.

cheers,

-cvj
Moshe on May 10th, 2006 at 12:12 pm

Seems to me the next frontier is having that technical assiatant revealing herself to be the real hero, putting the likes of Mr. Cruise in their proper place, maybe then I’ll even go watch those movies…(yes, it is unlikely, one can dream).
A.J. on May 10th, 2006 at 1:44 pm

I can’t believe no one’s mentioned Swordfish: The hero is a computer hacker! On the other hand, it might not qualify as an “action movie” because the villain gets the girl in the end.
DrNathaniel on May 10th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

I think this is sad.

The reason then main character is doing the technical stuff isn’t that they think it’s cool.. it’s becaue they want to write out the nerd .

Why introduce a whole new character to just write down one equation, or to hack the computer? He’s ugly and unpopular and no body understands the things he’s saying anyway. So let’s just let the cool character do it, only the cool character is to cool to pay any attention or think about it.. they just sort of grok their way through it as though it were a slow-motion ninja fight.

Or something.

Dammit, I want Scotty back!

–Nathaniel
adam on May 10th, 2006 at 2:54 pm

A.J., check out what the ‘bad movie physics’ section of intuitor.com has to say about Swordfish.
Cynthia on May 10th, 2006 at 3:27 pm

I just ran across an article in my local newspaper about a T.V. show called “Numb3rs”. Oddly enough, David Krumholtz - the actor who stars as the show’s math genius states that in real life “science and math were a huge obstacle for me…to the point that I never got it”. Just curious: Have any “math-bent” viewers detected any flaws in the math formulae that this “nerd-cool” prodigy concocts in order to predict the actions of various criminals?
Belizean on May 10th, 2006 at 7:28 pm

â€¦ what Iâ€™m talking about is the next level: Headliner action heroes in the big blockbusters doing mathematics and physics.

Bruce Willis solved a nice math problem in Die Hard with a Vengeance. The water jug scene.
Kaleberg on May 10th, 2006 at 11:37 pm

Has anyone read any Jules Verne? How about Mysterious Island with Cyrus Smith, engineer, Yankee and action hero? There were a lot of fighting engineers in the Civil War, and all of them were Yankees. Granted, Captain Nemo was a great villain, and an action hero in his own right. (Magneto was probably based on Nemo).

It is interesting that science and engineering are becoming popular again. I know that the 1850s and 1860s were high points in the 19th century, and there was a radio and airplane vogue back in the 1920s and 1930s, (Didn’t President Harding get caught up in the Pythagorean theorem craze as well as the Teapot Dome scandal)? The 1960s and 1970s were low points.

I think it takes a mix of troubled times and a sense of technological promise for combining action and technological heroism. Sometimes brawn is seen as sufficient, but other times it takes brains and brawn.
Clifford on May 11th, 2006 at 1:31 am

Kaleberg:- Love Jules Verne. Nice points you make. Love dumplings too (what?…. click on Kaleberg’s name…).

Belizean:- Yes!! Good example. Link here. (I thought it was the characters of both Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson who solved it, but I don’t recall accurately, perhaps.)

-cvj
Cynthia on May 11th, 2006 at 10:42 am

Kaleberg - It was President Garfield, not President Harding, who devised the Trapezoidal Proof(1876) of the Pythagorean Theorem. Unfortunately, after serving less than four months in office, Garfield was shot by a disgruntled office seeker while boarding a train to Washington. Subsequently, Garfield died several months later from a severe infection due to this gunshot wound. Like Garfield, Harding also died in office. I will only comment that our country needs more leaders with strong mathematical skills.
Clifford on May 11th, 2006 at 10:46 am

…and body armour.

-cvj
Plato on May 11th, 2006 at 11:43 am

I just thought it had such a nice “ring” to it.

Chain Reaction

Eddie Kasalivich, an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, works as a technician for a scientific team that discovers an alternative, low-cost, pollution-free fuel source. When one of the chief scientists is murdered and the invention stolen, Eddie and physicist Lily Sinclair are framed for it and have to flee for their lives, with the FBI, CIA and other involved parties in close pursuit. Paul Shannon, Eddies mentor, is the director of a scientific company which - unknown to Eddie - has commercial interests in the invention. Eddie and Lily set out to find the stolen invention and hopefully clear themselves of the false charges
Ruth Ellen on May 11th, 2006 at 12:51 pm

I’ve been watching re-runs, lately, of the TV series Mission Impossible. I’d noticed some interesting things for its time (late 60s to early 70s), among them that the engineering geek was black and, in addition, had a couple of episodes where he was the love interest (of interest because he’s the geek, not because he’s black). Then, later in the series, it turns out that the muscle guy has attained some engineering skills (never gains much in the way of acting skills, unfortunatley). And even during the first three years, when the woman member of the team was noted for sex appeal, she 1) plays a scientist in a couple of episodes (including a nuclear physicist), and 2)beats some guy up in an episode. So there was already some cross-over going on almost forty years ago.
adam on May 11th, 2006 at 12:55 pm

I’m a nerd and I’m proud.
Clifford on May 11th, 2006 at 2:55 pm

Ruth Ellen…Thanks! Yes, that is a well-known and excellent feature of the series. But again…I’m talking about the cross-over phenomenon in modern blockbuster movies, not in television, where -yes- it has been for some time.

The point is that there was a period of 20 years or more where the division of labour I discussed in the main post became the norm, and no-one could break out the mould, it seemed. Indeed, it was not always like that…but the modern blockbuster is an interesting phenomenon in itself, and so it is interesting to track the “crossover” in that context…. given the pressures the studios are under because they treat them like a high-stakes game, etc, …as described above.

Thanks.

Cheers,

-cvj
Ed Minchau on May 11th, 2006 at 10:47 pm

Spiderman.
Ed Minchau on May 11th, 2006 at 10:48 pm

Oh yeah… Superman.
Pingback from Theoretical Physics Goes Corporate | Cosmic Variance on May 13th, 2006 at 3:49 am

[...] See also my recent observation of the appearance of equations being written by the lead in a recent blockbuster movie and you’ll get to thinking that my topsy-turvy reverse-universe I have fun imagining from time to time, where science is part of mainstream popular culture, is starting to become true. Well…. maybe not…but it is nice to imagine. [...]
cynic on May 14th, 2006 at 7:06 pm

coming rather late to this one: no mention thus far of a real math-action movie hero - played by a real man, Rusty Crowe: John Nash in a beautiful mind. No shit, (modulo some air brushing of Nash’s treatment of his fellow man and woman) a man at the edge, fighting for everything he holds dear, and doing some fairly top of the range math, with perhaps the first on-screen appearence of the Reimann zeta function (just before it becomes quite obvious that the Paul Bettany character is a delusion, and they incarcerate JN in the asylum). Then there was a Western CSI like program a few years back, called, I think, ‘The Peacemakers’, that featured a spot of least squares fitting in the title sequence. The name of the producer/script writer? Matt Witten. And he has been closely involved with the uber nerd superstar House (English, cute and crippled). So when they make a film about his big bro (’Dream of Fields’, perhaps, and firing up Kevin Kostner’s career), who are they gonna call?

BTW

Wasn’t the math in ‘Good Will Hunting’ absolute shite, and quite the worst representation yet of our sorry craft on the silver screen.
Pingback from Nerdium Perpetuus - Asymptotia on Sep 11th, 2006 at 7:15 pm

[...] In view of the discussion here and here, I feel I ought to remind readers of an earlier post entitled “The Rise of the Nerd” I wrote on the subject of nerds, geeks, the terminology, and the media portrayals. Somewhere in there is a serious point, which keeps getting missed in all of this jolly fun: [...]

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