rupertbreheny

I was surprised by how much I learned playing Cell to Singularity. It's not just a fun game, it's actually a really good way to learn about the universe. I feel like I covered a year of undergraduate biology in the space of a weekend!

You start with a single cell and basically evolve life all the way up to, well, the singularity! It's mind-expanding to see how everything connects, from tiny bacteria to massive galaxies. And all based on real science.

This feels like a record of all human knowledge in a pocket cosmology. I would love an option to use this purely as a reference tool and actually turn the gameplay off.

Sadly there is no option to buy outright, and there are micro transactions, and lots of adverts if you want boosts, but all are optional.

My deep respect and thanks to the team of passionate individuals who made this remarkable game, which I will likely revisit on my deathbed - that's how impactful it is.

I have to admit my heart sank a little at the knowingly self-indulgent opening montages of this would-be genre staple. That old familiar comedy of manners where the outsider goes home to meet the in-laws for the first time, and oh the misunderstandings that ensue.

Pleasing then that this really rose above its peers in how deft a touch it brings to such familiar proceedings. Sure the family are quirkily dysfunctional folk of simple tastes - but never does the movie take the aloof tone that the fish out of water daughter in-law adopts in her attempts to fit in.

Sure she has some of her superiority stripped away but her humanity is graciously left in tact. It's not all just heart-warming salt of the earth stuff, these are pretty forlorn characters but you certainly feel more compassion for them than a mere guilty acknowledgement of their small-town outlook.

Interesting to note the fate of the little wooden bird that the father carves throughout the film. I was expecting an unspoken connection between father and daughter in-law which is sealed in the final farewells with the presentation of the gift - but I love the fact that he knows she would see it for it's art and not it's heart and winds up off-handedly offering it to his wife who might not see his craftsman's soul, but understands the intent of the man she loved and married.

Hal: You read a lot of maths. Catherine: I read Cosmo. It is just a window dressing.

Sadly this quote seems to apply to the whole film. Maybe it was unfortunate that I had chosen to watch the DVD of Pi the same day, as this film paled by comparison. It struck me that the director must have shied away from including any kind of mathematical content whatsoever. We see all the great passions, jealousies and hidden motives, but never do we see what everyone is getting so excited about. It would be like making a film about art and never showing a painting.

It strikes me that this is the work of a literary type who just took the academic world he knew and transferred the setting from the English to Maths departments without taking the time to read up on the subject. The film seems content to work on only one level, and is incalculably diminished by the decisions.

The concept of prime numbers have fascinated mathematicians for thousands of years and still we are no closer to proving whether there are an infinite number of them. Unfortunately this film has nothing informative to say on the matter.