MovieChat Forums > A Serious Man (2009) Discussion > Anyone else get the feeling that the Asi...

Anyone else get the feeling that the Asian student was right?

posted 13 years ago by nasdaq311
21 replies | jump to latest

and that he really understood physics, and he actually trying to HELP professor gopnik understand so that he can avoid the tornado? -- My point is that, there are clues the situation is flipped and its actually ironic that the student understands it BETTER than the professor thinks he does.

imagine clive park as an extradimensional being sent with total knowledge of physics to attempt to save gopnik (clive park's physics is so advanced gopnik actually thinks its wrong, because he cant understand it)

Larry Gopnik: Well, you can't do physics without mathematics, really, can you?
Clive Park: If I receive failing grade I lose my scholarship, and feel shame. I understand the physics. I understand the dead cat.
Larry Gopnik: You understand the dead cat? But... you... you can't really understand the physics without understanding the math. The math tells how it really works. That's the real thing; the stories I give you in class are just illustrative; they're like, fables, say, to help give you a picture. An imperfect model. I mean - even I don't understand the dead cat. The math is how it really works. (no it isn't - we see later in the Sy Abelman classroom scene)
Clive Park: Very difficult... very difficult...

[–] ILikeDirt420 13 years ago

lol, maybe he did have it all figured out. he was right about 1 thing for sure, quantum mechanics is very difficult... very difficult...

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] WalterSobchak34 13 years ago

Then where's his dad come from?

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Come on, Donny, they were threatening castration. Are we gonna split hairs here?

[–] nasdaq311 13 years ago

his dad is the same type of being, trying to help our prof

[–] cult_classics 13 years ago

Clive's lesson would be that even if he has done wrong Larry turned nature against himself, some call it karma, by changing the grade. Job/Larry went from blameless to judging and cheating. Here's where Job loses his hedge if you wish to connect stories. Larry's main problem is his unruly kids putting themselves on pedestals. This is why by the law of the prince judge and unholy physics Larry will soon lose his kids.
Karma and luck are strange things that operate by laws long since cancelled. They were once strange and now again they operate outside of grace, hedges and armor.

I didn't order Santana Abraxas. I didnt listen to Santana Abraxas. I do not want Santana Abraxas.

[–] shift0 13 years ago

I think that's an interesting catch. The best explanations of this movie mentioned how much it was about uncertainty of the world vs. the struggle of Larry to find certainty with mathematical precision. What the student is saying is "you don't need to understand every step of the way to get how it works". (For example some prehistoric potter didn't know squat about physics of the clay he was molding but he still could understand exactly how it works and behaves.) We can never quite rationalize everything, we're just not that smart and we're not made that way - we always have to rely on the irrational on our instincts and such.

In lot of characters in ASM it manifests as religous faith. In Clive Park we see it in him maybe being able to 'get' physics without understanding math...

Didn't quite understood the relation of this to the tornado, though

[–] quatrixj 13 years ago

Durrrrrrr.

[–] nasdaq311 12 years ago

This is what I meant by Clive Park teaching Prof. Gopnik about physics (specifically, the uncertainty principle), and not the other way around:

Larry Gopnik: We had, I think, a good talk, the other day, but you left something that...
Clive Park: I didn't leave it.
Larry Gopnik: Well - you don't even know what I was going to say.
Clive Park: I didn't leave anything. I'm not missing anything. I know where everything is.
Larry Gopnik: Well... then, Clive, where did this come from? This is here, isn't it?
Clive Park: Yes, sir. That is there.
Larry Gopnik: This is not nothing, this is something.
Clive Park: Yes sir. That is something.
[a beat]
Clive Park: What is it?
Larry Gopnik: You know what it is! You know what it is! I believe. And you know I can't keep it, Clive.
Clive Park: Of course, sir.
Larry Gopnik: I'll have to pass it on to Professor Finkle, along with my suspicions about where it came from. Actions have consequences.
Clive Park: Yes. Often.
Larry Gopnik: Always! Actions always have consequences! In this office, actions have consequences!
Clive Park: Yes sir.
Larry Gopnik: Not just physics. Morally.
Clive Park: Yes.
Larry Gopnik: And we both know about your actions.
Clive Park: No sir. I know about my actions.
Larry Gopnik: I can interpret, Clive. I know what you meant me to understand.
Clive Park: Meer sir my sir.
Larry Gopnik: Meer sir my sir?
Clive Park: [Careful enunciation] Mere... surmise. Sir. Very uncertain.

[–] nasdaq311 12 years ago

and his father as well:

Clive's Father: Culture clash. Culture clash.
Larry Gopnik: With all respect, Mr. Park, I don't think it's that.
Clive's Father: Yes.
Larry Gopnik: No. It would be a culture clash if it were the custom in your land to bribe people for grades.
Clive's Father: Yes.
Larry Gopnik: So... you're saying it is the custom?
Clive's Father: No, this is a defamation. Grounds for lawsuit.
Larry Gopnik: Let me get this straight: you're threatening to sue me for defaming your son?
Clive's Father: Yes.
Larry Gopnik: But it would...
Mr. Brandt: Is this man bothering you?
Larry Gopnik: Is he bothering me? No. I, uh...
[Larry stares awkwardly at Brandt until he leaves]
Larry Gopnik: See... if it were defamation there would have to be someone I was defaming him to, or I... all right, I... let's keep it simple. I could pretend the money never appeared. That's not defaming anyone.
Clive's Father: Yes. And a passing grade.
Larry Gopnik: Passing grade.
Clive's Father: Yes.
Larry Gopnik: Or... you'll sue me.
Clive's Father: For taking money.
Larry Gopnik: So he *did* leave the money.
Clive's Father: This is defamation!
Larry Gopnik: It doesn't make sense. Either he left the money or he didn't.
Clive's Father: Please. Accept the mystery.
Larry Gopnik: You can't have it both ways!
Clive's Father: Why not?

[–] coolbluegreen 10 years ago

Okay, I loved Brandt. LOVED him. He's a dreadful man, of course. But I love how we saw him, when the chips were down -- not abandon his neighbor. He turned his face against the Asian and decided to help the white man, the Jew (who didn't want the help of this racist). Brandt was also, of course, trying to steal land from Larry, etc., but something primal in him (he was probably a veteran of Korea) did not want to see a white man stand alone against an Asian. This who complicated issue of who Larry's friend is and should he take support from people like this to me is a micro look at the situation Israel is in. Israel gets a lot of support from Tea Party Christian right Brandt types and it really is a dance with the Devil since those people have their own agenda and are not truly friends to Jews.

[–] TVippy 10 years ago

I initially thought the neighbour told Asian "is this guy bothering you" and not Larry. That'd be funnier, I think.
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I own you.

[–] coolbluegreen 10 years ago

How would that be funny? And it wasn't meant to be funny. It was meant to further characterize the neighbor and that characterization worked. It also showed Larry's dilemma.

[–] bruce-129 8 years ago

It's not a comedy to anyone but you

[–] bhoover247 10 years ago

The country of Israel gets support from the Tea Party right types. Individual Jews in the United States tend to be despised by these same people. I guess it's the idea of their OK as long as they are on the other side of the world and not in my neighborhood.

[–] pfnuesel 11 years ago

I don't see where this thread is going, but I know for sure that you can't understand the cat without mathematics. In this respect I didn't like the movie, it tries to draw connections from fundamental Physics (uncertainty principle, collapse of wave functions) to everyday life where there are none. It's not the uncertainty principle which makes you not know why things happen in life, it's not even related. This brings me to the most unrealistic part of the movie: Larry is a Physics teacher who can actually draw a nice cat onto the blackboard. Very unlikely, I cannot accept that mistery.

[–] ossyguy 10 years ago

I used to be uncertain but now I'm not so sure.
Old Bee Party V Swirled

[–] BobbyDupea 9 years ago

I don't see where this thread is going, but I know for sure that you can't understand the cat without mathematics. In this respect I didn't like the movie, it tries to draw connections from fundamental Physics (uncertainty principle, collapse of wave functions) to everyday life where there are none. It's not the uncertainty principle which makes you not know why things happen in life, it's not even related.

Your point is reasonable, but I think the story of Shrodinger's cat does illustrate the difference between reality according to the theory of microscopic quantum physics and the reality we experience on the macro level. That seems more relevant to the movie, even though one can argue that the relevance is tangential.

And, yes, in a real sense demonstrated in the events as they unfold in the movie, the kid and his father are correct, and Larry is wrong.

My real name is Jeff

[–] bruce-129 8 years ago

But there has to be some connection.
However, religion evolved, odd way to look at it, from people who were not scientific.
Science chips away at religion like a sculptor chips away at a block of marble.
But who is to say at what stage the piece of art is best, or why?
When you start to ask questions you need mathematics ultimately,
even simple questions.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Alarming_Passion 10 years ago

I didn't get he was right. I got why Asians are considered good at subjects like math.

----- yo

[–] PhoenixPhuck 9 years ago

But he wasn't good at the math. He didn't even know they were gonna be tested on the math.

At the beginning of the movie, Larry tells Clive you can't understand the physics without the math. And for the rest of the movie, Clive and his father prove that Larry was wrong.

Even the most primitive society has an innate respect for the insane.