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35 – Statistics in Sports, Competitions, and the Arts
The Nature of Reality: Was Will Hunting Really All That Smart?
Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
Keywords: Good Will Hunting, mathematical genius, an error in logic, The Nature of Reality
Laurence D. Robinson
Ohio Northern University
In the movie Good Will Hunting, janitor Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon) is supposedly one of the greatest mathematical geniuses in history. It is my contention that Will Hunting makes an error in logic (with regard to "The Nature of Reality") that such a great genius would not make, and thus that the movie has a major logical flaw. In this paper I discuss an idea that I first had well over thirty years ago, and an extensive project I conducted with regard to this idea during the past year.