Mathematics. Science. Philosophy. Religion. Wall Street.
But, given conflicting points of view, not necessarily in that order.
A rare film indeed. One that is clearly about 1] ideas and 2] the particular relationship they have to the world we actually live in. But 3] the gap between them is, in many crucial respects, still as maddeningly wide as ever.
And, sure, the metaphysical and religious tangents are fanscinating too. What is existence? How will we know? And [of course] when each of us one by one topples over into the abyss is all that gone forever? For “I”?
Here’s the thing though: I am not all that sophisticated in the language of mathematics. I can only fathom the implications of Pi up tp a point. Like you probably. All the things we just have to assume that others do know what they are talking about.
When you’re younger you think that, before you die, there will be an astounding breakthrough here. The pattern will be found. As you get older though you think that less and less.
IMDb
[b]Pi cost only $60,000 to make, most of which was raised in the form of individual $100 contributions from the director’s friends and family. When it was later bought by Artisan Entertainment, each contributor got back a $150 return on their investment.
No location permits were secured for any of the scenes filmed. The crew had to have one man constantly serving as a lookout for police so they could stop filming if needed.[/b]
wiki
[b]Themes:
Mathematics
Pi features several references to mathematics and mathematical theories. For instance, Max finds the golden spiral occurring everywhere, including the stock market. Max’s belief that diverse systems embodying highly nonlinear dynamics share a unifying pattern bears much similarity to results in chaos theory, which provides machinery for describing certain phenomena of nonlinear systems, which might be thought of as patterns.
Kabbalah
The 216-letter name of God sought by the characters of the film is known as the Shem ha-Meforash or the Explicit Name. It comes from Exodus 14:19-21. Each of these three verses is composed of seventy-two letters in the original Hebrew. If one writes the three verses in boustrophedon form—one above the other, the first from right to left, the second from left to right, and the third from right to left—one gets seventy-two columns of three-letter names of God.
The game of Go
In the film, Max periodically plays Go with his mentor, Sol. This game has historically stimulated the study of mathematics and features a simple set of rules that results in a complex game strategy. The two characters each use the game as a model for their view of the universe; Sol says that the game is a microcosm of an extremely complex and chaotic world, while Max asserts that patterns can be found in the complexity of its variations.
Actors Sean Gullette and Mark Margolis both spent many hours learning the game at the Brooklyn Go Club, and had the help of a Go consultant for the film.[/b]
trailer:
youtu.be/oQ1sZSCz47w
PI [1998]
Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky
[b]Max [voiceover]: Something’s going on. It has to do with that number. There’s an answer in that number.
…
Max [voiceover]: Restate my assumptions: 1] Mathematics is the language of nature. 2] Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3] If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature. Evidence: The cycling of disease epidemics; the wax and wane of caribou populations; sun spot cycles; the rise and fall of the Nile. So, what about the stock market? The universe of numbers that represents the global economy. Millions of hands at work, billions of minds. A vast network, screaming with life. An organism. A natural organism. My hypothesis: Within the stock market, there is a pattern as well… Right in front of me…hiding behind the numbers. Always has been.
…
[repeated line]
Max [voiceover]: When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun, so when I was six I did.
…
Max [voiceover]: Personal note. Second attack in under 24 hours. Administered 80 milligrams Promozine HCI and six milligrams Sumattrapan orally, as well as one milligram Dihydroric-atamine-mezilayte by subcutaneous injection.
…
Sol: But life isn’t just mathematics, Max. I spent 40 years searching for patterns in Pi. I found nothing.
Max: You found things.
Sol: I found things…but not a pattern. Not a pattern.
…
Max [voiceover]: Sol died a little when he stopped research on Pi. It wasn’t just the stroke. He stopped caring. How could he stop, when he was so close to seeing Pi for what it really is? How could you stop believing that there is a pattern, an ordered shape behind those numbers, when you were so close? We see the simplicity of the circle, we see the maddening complexity of the endless numbers 3.14 off into infinity.
…
Lenny: Hebrew is all math. It’s all numbers. You know that? Look. Ancient Jews used Hebrew as their numerical system. Each letter’s a number. The Hebrew A, Aleph, is 1. B, Bet, is 2. Understand? But look, the numbers are interrelated. Take the Hebrew for father, ab. Aleph, Bet. 1 plus 2 equals 3. The word for mother, haim. Aleph, Mem. 140 equals the sum of 3 and 41. 44. Now, the Hebrew word for child - mother, father, child. Yelev. That’s 10, 30 and 4. 44. Torah is just a long string of numbers. Some say that it’s a code, sent to us from God.
…
Max [voiceover]: Failed treatments to date: Beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, adrenalin injections, high dose ibuprofen, steroids, Trager Mentastics, violent exercise, cafergot suppositories, caffeine, acupuncture, marijuana, Percodan, Midrine, Tenormin, Sansert, homeopathics. No results. No results. No results.
…
Sol: What…What’s happened?
Max: First, I get these crazy low picks, then it spit out this string of numbers. I never saw anything like it. And then it fries. It crashed.
Sol: You have a print out? Of the picks, the number?
Max: I threw it out.
Sol: What number did it spit out?
Max: I don’t know, a string of digits.
Sol: How many?
Max: I don’t know.
Sol: What is it …a 100, a 1000, 216? How many?
Max: Probably around 200. Why?
Sol: I dealt with some bugs back in my Pi days. I wondered if it was like one I ran into.
…
Sol: You remember Archimedes of Syracuse, eh? The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he’s received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks - insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife - she’s forced to share a bed with this genius - convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he’s entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that’s a way to determine density - weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams “Eureka” and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king’s palace to report his discovery.
[pause]
Sol: Now, what is the moral of the story?
Max: That a breakthrough will come.
Sol: Wrong! The point of the story is the wife. You listen to your wife, she will give you perspective, meaning. You need a break, you have to take a bath or you will get nowhere!
…
Lenny: We’re searching for a pattern in the Torah.
Max: What kind?
Lenny: We’re not sure. All we know is it’s 216 digits long.
…
Max: You asked me if I’d seen a 216 digit number.
Sol: Oh, yeah. You mean the bug. I ran into it working on Pi.
Max: What do you mean ran into it?
Sol: Max, what’s this about?
Max: There are these religious Jews I’ve been talking to. Hasids, the guys with beards. I know one from a coffee shop. He’s a number theorist. The Torah is his data set. He says they’re after a 216-digit number in the Torah.
Sol: Come on, it’s just coincidence.
Max: There’s something else, though. You remember those weird stock picks? They were correct. I got two picks on the nose. Smack on the nose, Sol. Something’s going on. It has to do with that number. There’s an answer in it.
…
Sol: The Ancient Japanese considered the Go board to be a microcosm of the universe. Although when it is empty it appears to be simple and ordered, in fact, the possibilities of gameplay are endless. They say that no two Go games have ever been alike. Just like snowflakes. So, the Go board actually represents an extremely complex and chaotic universe. So, the Go board actually represents an extremely complex and chaotic universe. And that’s the truth of our world, Max. It can’t be easily summed up with math. There is no simple pattern.
Max: But as the game progresses, the possibilities become smaller. The board takes on order. Soon, every move’s predictable. So maybe, even though we’re not aware of it, there is a pattern, an order underlying every Go game. Maybe it’s like the pattern in the stock market? The Torah? This 216 number?
Sol: This is insanity, Max!.
Max: Or maybe it’s genius.
Sol: Listen to yourself. You’re connecting my computer bug with one you might’ve had and some religious hogwash! You want to find the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from a mere street corner to your front door. 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.
…
Marcy: Mr Cohen…
Max: God damn it! I’m sick of you following me. I’m not interested in money. I want to understand our world. I don’t deal with petty materialists like you.
…
Max [voiceover]: More evidence. Remember da Vinci. Artist, inventor, sculptor, naturalist. ltaly, 15th century. Rediscovered the perfection of the golden rectangle and pencilled it into his masterpieces. Connecting a curve through the concentric golden rectangles, you generate the mythical golden spiral. Pythagoras loved this shape, for he found it in nature - a nautilus shell, rams’ horns, whirlpools, tornadoes, our fingerprints, our DNA and even our Milky Way.
…
Max: You lied to me.
Sol: You have it? OK, sit down. I gave up before I pinpointed it, but my guess is that certain problems cause computers to get stuck in a loop. The loop leads to meltdown, but just before they crash they become aware of their own structure. The computer has a sense of its own silicon nature and it prints out its ingredients.
Max: The computer becomes conscious?
Sol: In…In some ways…I guess. Studying the pattern made Euclid conscious of itself. It died spitting out the number.
Max: Consciousness is the number?
Sol: No, Max. It’s only a nasty bug.
Max: It’s more than that.
Sol: No. It’s a dead end! There’s nothing there!
Max: It’s a door, Sol. A door.
Sol: A door to a cliff, you’re driving yourself over the edge. You need to stop.
Max: You were afraid. - That’s why you quit.
Sol: I got burnt. It caused my stroke!
Max: That’s bullshit! It’s mathematics, numbers, ideas. Mathematicians should go to the edge. You taught me that.
Sol: It’s death!
Max: You can’t tell me what it is. You’ve retreated to your Go and books and goldfish.
Sol: Max, go home.
…
Marcy [to Max]: You don’t understand it, do you? I don’t give a shit about you! I only care about what’s in your fucking head! If you won’t help us, help yourself. We are forced to comply to the laws of nature. Survival of the fittest Max, and we’ve got the fucking gun!
…
Lenny: Where’s the number?
Max: It’s not on me. It’s in my head.
Lenny: Did you give it to those Wall Street bastards.
…
Rabbi Cohen: The High Priest had one ritual to perform there. He had to intone a single word. That word was the true name of God.
Max: So?
Rabbi Cohen: The true name, which only the Cohanim knew, was 216 letters long.
Max: Are you telling me that…that the number in my head is the true name of God?
Rabbi: Yes! It’s the key to the Messianic age. It will take us closer to the Garden of Eden. As the temple burnt, the Talmud tells us the High Priest walked into the flames. He took the key to the top of the building, the heavens opened and received the key from the priest’s outstretched hand. We have been looking for that key ever since. And you may have found it.
Max: I saw God.
Rabbi Cohen: No. You are not pure. You cannot see God unless you are pure.
Max: No…I saw everything.
Rabbi Cohen: You saw nothing, only a glimpse. There’s so much more. We can unlock the door and show God we’re pure again.
Max: You’re not pure. How are you pure? I found it!
Rabbi Cohen: Who do you think you are? You are only a vessel from God. You’re carrying a delivery meant for us!
Max: It was given to me. It’s inside of me. It’s changing me.
Rabbi Cohen: It’s killing you! Because you are not ready to receive it.
Max: It’s just a number. I’m sure you’ve written down every 216-digit number. You’ve translated all of them. You’ve intoned them all. Haven’t you? What’s it gotten you? The number is nothing. It’s the meaning. The syntax. It’s what’s between the numbers. You haven’t understood it. It’s because it’s not for you. I’ve got it. I’ve got it! I understand it. And I’m gonna see it. Rabbi, I was chosen.[/b]