One of the benefits of membership on this site is the ability to request a post on any math topic! I received a request for examples of math in the movies for kids. It was a lot of fun researching and I’m excited to share my finds with you. I was able to find so much great stuff that I am going to break this post in 2 parts. This one will be movies based on math, and the second will be examples/clips of math in other movies. We’ll start with a movie that is fabulous for young children and progress all the way to high school!
Donald in Mathmagic Land
One lesser known favorite of mine is Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. This is a 27-minute Disney movie from 1956. You can watch in its entirety on YouTube or can buy it on DVD from Amazon. It was actually nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary/short subject. It became a widely viewed educational film in American schools during the 1960s.
In a fun way that kids enjoy watching, it covers an amazing amount of information. It shows how math applies to nature, architecture, and music, as well as to many games. Some of the math concepts are fairly advanced (Fibonacci sequence, golden ratio.) However, the explanations are kid friendly and understandable.
At the end of the movie the narrator makes the statement that scientific knowledge and technological advances are unlimited. He then goes on to say that the key to unlocking the doors of the future is mathematics. I love to use that statement to kick off a discussion with kids about how many advances we have now that were still unimagined at the time the movie was made. The movie ends with a quote from Galileo: “Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe”.
Teachers and parents might enjoy this article from Disney about the making of the film.
Eustice Solves a Problem
In this 12 minute Australian short film from 2004 available on Vimeo, a boy’s mother forces him into participating on a 1958 math gameshow. It not only includes math but has themes of friendship and courage.
The Story of One
This is a funny and interesting 60 minute documentary movie from the BBC about the development of our number system. You can watch it on Vimeo. It is great for upper elementary and middle school. The host is Terry Jones from Monty Python. Students will love that he uses a lot of humor. For example, he describes 1 as a living creature who “teamed up with zero to dominate the world we live in today.” Watch it here
Nova: The Great Math Mystery
Nova: The Great Math Mystery is a 53 minute PG rated exploration of math from 2015. The question it asks: “Is math invented by humans, or is it the language of the universe?” This movie was nominated for an Emmy award. This program used to be available for free streaming here. Currently it is not available free but you can use the link to purchase the DVD from the PBS shop.
The description on PBS is as follows::
“Join NOVA on a mathematical mystery tour—a provocative exploration of math’s astonishing power across the centuries. We discover math’s signature in the swirl of a nautilus shell, the whirlpool of a galaxy, and the spiral in the center of a sunflower. Math was essential to everything from the first wireless radio transmissions to the prediction and discovery of the Higgs boson and the successful landing of rovers on Mars. Astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio, along with a colorful cast of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, follow math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond.”
An Amazon reviewer said this, “I’m a junior high math teacher and I used this as a math documentary to summarize many of the concepts we studied throughout the school year. This takes it to the next level. The cinematography was done really well and it held their interest for the entire time. It was a way to unwind after having 2 days of standardized testing, but still focusing on the importance of math in everyday life.” Another teacher mentioned it was a big hit with her 6th grade class.
The Story of Math
The Story of Math
This was originally a 4 part British television program written and presented by an Oxford professor. It is a historical/scientic documentary narrated in an entertaining way with an emphasis on human interest. High school teachers report showing this in class. Many parent reviewers say their younger kids who were interested in math enjoyed it as well. Others say that due to the innuendos to sex and references to religion and war atrocities it is most appropriate for ages 15 and up.
You can watch free on YouTube or on Amazon Prime
In the first part, “The Language of the Universe,” Marcus du Sautoy looks at how important and fundamental mathematics is to our lives before examining the math used in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece. (BBC description.)
In the second part, The Genius of the East, Du Sautoy visits China and explores how maths helped build imperial China and was at the heart of such amazing feats of engineering as the Great Wall. In India, he discovers how the symbol for the number zero was invented and Indian mathematicians’ understanding of the new concepts of infinity and negative numbers. He then goes to the Middle East where he looks at the invention of the new language of algebra and the spread of eastern knowledge to the west through mathematicians such as Leonardo Fibonacci, creator of the Fibonacci Sequence.
In the third part, The Frontiers of Space, Marcus du Sautoy investigates the ways in which Europe replaced the Middle East as the world’s powerhouse of mathematical ideas by the 17th century.
Finally, in part four, To Infinity and Beyond, Marcus du Sautoy concludes his look at the history of mathematics by examining the great unsolved problems that confronted mathematicians in the 20th century.