As I understand it, the book by Ben Mezrich which inspired this film is non-fiction. It told the true story (though using pseudonyms) of a team comprised of an MIT math professor and six MIT students who used card counting to win lots of money in casinos. This film takes that story and "sexes" it up with more background story, violence and Hollywood actors. Having never read the book nor seen the movie, I cannot say how much they actually say about mathematics in either. But, I'm hoping that if I post this "stub" here someone more interested in gambling than me will write in with useful information. (Click here to send me a comment about this film.)
| Contributed by
Edward Janiszewski
the premise of counting cards (high-low) is as they say in the movie "simple math". One scene in the movie shows actual math. The beginning scene is at MIT in a senior level "non-linear equations class". It is interesting because they talk about Newton, Raphson and their methods for solutions of non-linear equations and finding true zero. While the conversation/lingo is quite correct, the board behind Kevin Spacey shows only 1st and 2nd order equations, hardly something for a senior level class (not to mention at MIT!), but still all-in-all pretty damn good for Hollywood!
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| Contributed by
Shelia
The movie is called "21" However, I believe the title of the book is "Bringing Down the House"
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