I keep looking for things like this. I saw this short cartoon in the 1960s. I might have seen it again in the 1970s, but I’m not sure. I can recall it very clearly, and have wanted to see i again for ages. It wasn’t there when I looked on YouTube previously, or anywhere else on the web, for that matter. It may be that you can get it from Pyramid, as one poster clasims, but it’s nontrivial and expensive, IIRC.
I recall seeing it around 1970, too. But the only thing I remembered was the monks chanting. I don’t remember if I got the “zero” joke or not. Thanks for pointing it out.
Maybe you’d be interested in 2 of the “Mathematical Peepshow” Eames cartoons.
I watched them every time I visited IBM’s Mathematica exhibit in the Museum of Science and Industry. That was a great exhibit. I was very disappointed when they replaced it with a relatively dull IBM PC exhibit. According to Wikipedia it can now be seen at the New York Hall of Science and the Museum of Science, Boston.
Thanks – I’ve never seen the Eratosthenes one at the Boston MOS Mathematica, although I’ve seen the chessboard one. I’ve also seen a cartoon adaptation of Abbott’s Flatland there, too (although it had atrocious sound). Sorry to hear the one in Chicago’s gone.
Didn’t they have one at the Museum of Science in LA? Or did they have it once, and now it’s gone?
Thanks, rowrbazzle, but that article says something that’s incorrect:
The Mathematica exhibit at the Boston MOS can’t have come from Chicago – it was there in the mid-1970s, when I attended MIT and frequently visited. I’ve seen the one at the Chicago Museum, too, and recognized it from the MOS.
A have a copy of the Mathematica Timeline poster that I got at the Chicago Museum. There;s still one up on the wall opposite the MIT Undergraduate Mathematics office, where I first saw it.
CalMeacham: your thread inspired me to search around online for a cartoon short that my high school marine biology teacher once played for the class. It’s really not particularly educational, nor science-related except in the most superficial sense; but I’ve never forgotten it, and I’ve always wanted to watch it again. Thanks for the idea.