[This] is a cute concept film which uses the fairy tale setting of Princess Rapunzel to articulate some simple but attractive mathematical concepts. In particular, it has a funny take on a desperate prince trying to win the favor of the princess, intoxicated by her hair and its aroma. Rapunzel, in this version, is a science and math aficionado who just wants to do her math in her (ivory) tower and have “her mind free to ponder the great questions of the universe”. She also has what the narrator calls a “useless superpower” to grow her hair at any rate, at will.

To keep the prince at bay, she tells him that he would have to rescue her from the tower by climbing up using her hair as a rope. And then cleverly tricks him by having her hair grow at the exact rate which stops the prince from making progress in his climb up the tower (reminiscent of a problem resembling a similar situation but quite different, in a paradoxical-sounding problem of an ant on a rubber rope.)

The clips makes very clever references to a few concepts like the googleplex, golden ratio and the application of mathematics to problems like the rate at which smoke rings expand. The point where the mathematicians of the kingdom call her proofs beautiful but useless reminded me of G H Hardy :-). And the ending of the clip on a very philosophical concept is enticing. One hopes there is more to the movie out there…

The movie clip has won a few awards but I have not been able to find out if the movie was ever completed. It had a Kickstarter page for donations, and the creators have teased some clips here and there. Would be interesting to see the entire movie implemented. IMDB lists this as a 14-minute film, though youtube has only about 7 minutes of it, and the link at IMDB leads to a defunct page…