With mathematician Ariane Mézard as adviser, director Anna Novion takes us inside the world of mathematical research—and, above all, the legendary École normale supérieure on rue d’Ulm (ENS). We follow Marguerite, a young researcher, "the mathematician in slippers", who spends her days and nights in this almost exclusively male world. The discovery of an error during her thesis defense turns everything upside down. She flees the ENS, and her encounter with the outside world is a harsh one, even though she explores it in her own way, as if solving a mathematical equation. The way she puts her mathematical talents to use, almost innocently, to become a mahjong player is rather delightful. Her mind remains constantly occupied by Goldbach's conjecture, which has stumped her.
For that is precisely the point here: to show a broad audience what mathematical research is really like—the question you get stuck on and that can become an obsession, the idea that may suddenly spring to mind when you are no longer paying attention and allows you to start afresh…
Le Théorème de Marguerite (Anna Novion, 2023) will be released in cinemas on November 1st. A preview screening with Ariane Mézard in attendance will be held during the "Maths en ville" festival in Saint-Denis (see the article "Theater and mathematics with Compagnie Terraquée").
