How Hard is the Math Problem in Good Will Hunting?
This excellent film also has some fun math to go with it!
I love the movie ‘Good Will Hunting.’ It’s an excellent story about a janitor named Will Hunting (Matt Damon) who works at MIT and is also a mathematical genius. Due to a rough upbringing and personal reasons, he never actually went to college and is entirely self-taught when it comes to math. He struggles to balance his gift with his personal life and ultimately must decide what he prioritizes more. I recommend this movie for anyone who has struggled to balance their career and other obligations, and it’s also great if you just want a solid feel-good drama.
Another reason I love this movie is that math is featured heavily throughout. Will Hunting is excellent at math, and one of the main characters is a math professor (Stellan Skarsgård) trying to convince Will to use his talents to help the field. Will Hunting is ‘discovered’ when he solves multiple math problems that are put on a whiteboard for people to try for themselves. There are two problems that he solved this way, let’s see one of them.
Problem #1
- How many trees are there with n labeled vertices?
- Draw all homomorphically irreducible trees with n = 10
