I recently saw a movie called "The Cube" that is a psychological thriller based largely on the mathemetical ingenuity of one of the film's five characters. The basic premise of the film is that five people wake up in a room, not knowing how they got there. They have to use their combined skills as a police officer, a mathematician, a psychologist, a jailbreak expert, and an autistic man with the gift of being able to give the prime factorization of humongous numbers, to escape from a series of booby-trapped cubical rooms. After a series of precarious experiments in navigating the room, the characters figure out that the cube is moving, and that they can escape if they can calculate when the right room is in the correct position for escape. The mathematician uses geometry and studies patterns in order to find that combination. The group also observes patterns in which rooms are booby-trapped, eventually discovering that there are three numbers labeling each room. They discover that the numbers with a 3 in their prime factorization mark an unsafe room. The autistic man then helps the group with his amazing, computer-like efficiency in calculating huge prime factorizations. Through creative manipulation and observation of mathematical patterns,the surviving members of the group find the exit at the film's conclusion. (Sorry if I ruined it for you.)

Tim Campbell, 2/26/99