Pits, Peaks and Passes (2 Parts)

Synopsis: Part 1: Professor Marston Morse’s work on critical point theory in the 1930s has led to major results in topology and inspired much current research. These films are a record of Professor Morse explaining his work to students. He proves an elementary result of ‘Morse Theory’ that for an island with one shoreline: number of peaks - number of passes + number of pits = 1. He uses models to demonstrate his theory and avoids being over-technical.
Part 2: Professor Morse analyses the critical points of continuous functions over compact orientable 3-manifolds.
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Film; Film. 16mm. sd. col. 48, 26 min.
Technical information: Black-and-white / Sound
Year of production: 1965
Availability: Hire
Uses: Second- and third-year courses in pure mathematics to illustrate interplay between topology and analysis; introductory material for postgraduate courses.*
Subjects: Mathematics
Keywords: topology

Cast

Marston Morse

Name: Higher Education Film & Video Library
Email: services@bufvc.ac.uk
Web: http://bufvc.ac. External site opens in new window
Phone: 020 7393 1503
Fax: 020 7393 1555
Address: c/o British Universities Film & Video Council
77 Wells Street
London
W1T 3QJ
Notes: Catalogue available from British Universities Film & Video Council.

This record has been viewed 977 times.