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Jason Parsley
Wake Forest University
29 November 2010
Crowe, as Nash
A Beautiful Mind
John Nash (Russell Crowe) is teaching vector calculus, um, in
his own way. After discarding the book, he poses the following
problem:
Jason Parsley
A Beautiful Mind
so F = 0}
{Gradients}
dim(V \ W ) = ?
Here X is a subset of R3 ; F is the curl of F.
Fact: The curl of g is zero, for any gradient.
Crowe claims this it will take
for some of you, many months to solve
for others among you, it will take you the term of your
natural lives
Jason Parsley
A Beautiful Mind
so F = 0}
{Gradients}
dim(V \ W ) =?
Hollywood was being overly dramatic. This is a great problem,
and relates to my research. But, its not that hard to solve!
My Math 733 class solved this in a few lectures last spring!
It relates to how many different nontrivial loops you can draw on
the subset.
Jason Parsley
A Beautiful Mind
so F = 0}
{Gradients}
dim(V \ W ) =?
Answer:
dim(V \ W ) = # different nontrivial loops on X
If X is simply-connected, (e.g., a solid ball or a solid cube), then
there arent any nontrivial loops, and dim(V \ W ) = 0.
Let X be R3 z-axis. Is this simply-connected? no.
Theres one nontrivial loop, which goes around the z-axis. The
vector field
y
x
F= 2
i+ 2
j
2
x +y
x + y2
has F = 0, but is not
gradient,
as Mind
we showed in class.
Jasona
Parsley
A Beautiful