Posted: 09/22/2000

Pi

(1998)

by Andrew Lewicky

Pi: a hidden message in the language of the Universe—or why human beings shouldn’t stare at the sun.

Carl Sagan believed that mathematics was the language of the Universe. Most of us accept math as a useful if occasionally vexing tool, good for explaining how things work. Sagan believed math did not merely explain but actually transcended reality. In his novel, Contact, mathematics is the Universe’s blueprint—and in such a document, asked Sagan, might we not find the author’s (God’s) signature? The film version of Contact, of course, wanted nothing to do with such heady thoughts, so Sagan’s question was forgotten in favor of less intellectual thrills.

Enter Pi. Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky’s debut feature, shot on a $20,000 budget, revisits the broad and chaotic landscape of mathematics. Max Cohen (Sean Gullette), the film’s protagonist, is a brilliant but obsessed young mathematician who is convinced reality operates according to three axioms: (1) mathematics is the language of nature. (2) everything in nature can be represented and understood through numbers. (3) if you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, argues Max, using math, you should be able to find patterns everywhere nature.

So what, you ask? Well…there’s this thing called the stock market, and if you could find and predict patterns within it, you’d very soon own the world. Or, if money’s not your thing, how about decoding God’s message to humanity, hidden within the numerology of the Torah? Max, in fact, is hounded by two groups: a nebulous wall street consulting firm, and a religious sect of Hasidic rabbis. Both groups believe Max and his home-built supercomputer (appropriately named Euclid) are about to discover the secrets of existence.

Such secrets, however, do not come without a price. Max lives alone, in near-squalor, spending all his waking days turning numbers around inside his head. He suffers from powerful migraine-like attacks that send him into recurrent fugue states despite a home pharmacy’s worth of countermeasures. Max’s work appears to be killing him. Indeed, his mentor, Sol (Mark Margolis), is constantly advising Max to live, to smell the roses. Sol is a retired Mathematician who once sought patterns in the endlessly repeating digits of Pi but gave the work up following a life-threatening stroke.

But Sol takes new interest in Max’s work when Euclid, the computer, spits out a 216-digit number and then fatally crashes. Years ago, just before his stroke, Sol also stumbled upon a 216-digit number. 216, perhaps not coincidentally, also happens to be the number of letters in God’s name, according to Hebrew lore, which also states that he who knows the name of God possesses the key to unlocking the secrets of the Universe. Still, Max dismisses the number as a computer bug, because it predicts a stock crash he believes is absurd. The next day the stock market crashes, as the now-dead Euclid predicted.

Max makes a devil’s bargain with the consulting company and gets a supercomputer chip in exchange. With this new chip, he decodes the 216-digit number (which again fries the computer). This time, however, the number is etched into Max’s mind, allowing him to see beyond the world’s surface to the underlying patterns that form the fabric of reality.

If Pi has a weakness, it’s that the film makes sure we know from the very start that no good can come of Max’s search for ultimate knowledge. Max himself knows this unconsciously—he often repeats a story of himself as a six year old, staring into the sun despite his mother’s warning. The incident nearly cost him his sight forever, and clearly stands as a metaphor for Max’s current venture. Max is staring into the full light of mathematics, the key to deciphering the Universe. Unlike Sagan’s benevolent math, Aronofsky’s 216-digit number is white-hot. Therefore, we know it is only a matter of time before Max’s mortal eyes melt before it.

Andrew Lewicky is a Los Angeles-based writer and story analyst.

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