Pi Monologues

A paranoid mathematician searches for a key number that will unlock the universal patterns found in nature.

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. Now, what is the moral of the story?

Wrong! The point of the story is the wife. Listen to your wife, she'll give you perspective. Meaning, you need a break. You have to take a bath or you'll get nowhere. There would be no order only chaos. Go home, Max, and you take a bath.

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. And that's the truth of our world, Max. It can't be easily summed up with math. There's no simple pattern.

Hold on! Slow down! You're losing it! You have to take a breathe. Listen to yourself. You're connecting a computer bug with one you might've had and some religious hogwash. If you want the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from your street corner to your front door, 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything you filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere. 320, 450, 22, whatever. You've chosen 216 and you'll find it everywhere in nature. But, Max, as soon as you discard scientific rigour, you are no longer a mathematician, you're a numerologist.

That is the truth of our world, Max. It can't be easily summed up with math.

When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun, so when I was six I did…

11:15, 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 these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.

Restate my assumptions: One, Mathematics is the language of nature. Two, Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: 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.

9:13, Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six I did. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal. I was terrified, alone in that darkness. Slowly, daylight crept in through the bandages, and I could see. But something else had changed inside of me. That day I had my first headache.

I'm trying to understand our world. I don't deal with petty materialists like you.

10:15, personal note: It's fair to say I'm stepping out on a limb, but I am on the edge and that's where it happens.

But as the game progresses, the possibilities become smaller and smaller. The board does take on order, soon the moves are predictable.

it, there is a pattern, an order underlying every Go game. Maybe that patter is like the pattern in the stock market, the Torah, this 216 number...

Maybe it's genius! I have to get that number!

9:22, Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun, so once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood.

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. It's 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! And I understand it and I'm going to see it. Rabbi, I was chosen!

Something's going on. It has to do with that number. There's an answer in that number.

My new hypothesis: If we're built from Spirals while living in a giant Spiral, then is it possible that everything we put our hands to is infused with the Spiral?

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...

10:28. Results: bullshit.