Applied Math at the Movies (including supplement)

This morning I had an article entitled The Mysterious Equilibrium of Zombies in the Boston Globe Ideas section about applied math in movies. I mentioned a number of movies, math and articles. For those who are interested in more details, here are some references, film clips and stills:

Casino Royale and Fractals

• The fractal it looks like is called the Mandelbrot Set

Harry Potter and The Millennium Bridge

• Trailer 3a for the film shows a brief scene of the destruction of the bridge near the end of the trailer
• Paper by Steve Strogatz and colleagues on the Millennium Bridge
• Paper by John Macdonald on the Millennium Bridge

The Dark Knight and Game Theory

• The Scene with the ferries (embedding disabled)
• The Prisoner’s Dilemma
• An analysis of the game theory involved in this scene

Zombie Epidemiology

• The original article on zombie epidemiology
• Wired News article about the paper
• A careful and fun examination of zombie movies

Six Degrees of Separation

• The MSN Messenger Network analysis paper
• An overview of social networks on Wikipedia

Balance Theory

• Reservoir Dogs Mexican Standoff Scene (embedding disabled)
• Background on Wikipedia on Balance Theory
• A recent paper on Balance Theory