This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From YKTTW Working Title: Prime Numbers Equal Intelligence
Micah: I'm not sure whether this is a parody of the trope or just a coincidence, so I'm leaving it here for somebody else to decide:
- Trying to converse with an illegal alien rather than an extraterrestrial alien, the deportation officer in The Proposal demands one of his interviewees to name "Which of the following numbers are primes?"
Crisis: Geometry is math, right? I remember in the movie Sphere, one of the characters said an ancient philosopher or mathematician or something was once asked to prove his intelligence and drew a perfect circle. Apparently, the titular Sphere, which was perfect down to the molecular level, was an attempt by a Sufficiently Advanced Alien to prove it was an intelligent species.
Micah: Sounds like an example, though I haven't seen the movie...
