pi

[AnnaLivia]

hi, PW. if you find that v for vendetta thread, will you please share it here? i've looked but can't find. sucky search function brings up nothing for me. <p></p><i></i>

[blanc]

interesting film <p></p><i></i>

[so buttons]

anotherdrew, it sounds like the mid-to-late 90's movie you are describing might be strange days? i believe it's from 1995, and i have thought about it from time to time when jeff mentions "videodrome" in his posts, because it's about a sort of similar concept: recordings of experience are taken directly from the brain and can be played back on a virtual reality disc through which the user is exposed to all the sensory aspects as though he was actually experiencing it himself. the main character begins receiving a series of tapes depicting brutal rapes and murders, and somehow it all ties into some master plot to create a helter-skelter-esque racial eruption in LA on the eve of the millenium...i only saw it once about 10 years ago when it first came onto HBO. i was very young and didn't quite get it, though i am now beginning to think it may be worth watching again. <p></p><i></i>

[yesferatu]

I picked up a book at Larry McMurtry's bookstore down in Texas a number of years ago....it was a first edition of a book called "Mathematics And The Imagination" printed 1940. It introduced me to Georg Cantor and his mathematics of transfinite numbers - the Alephs, i.e. aleph-null, etc. <br><br>I saw "Pi" a number of years ago as well. I took from it the power of pure mathematical concepts to cause mental breakdowns. There is more to the movie than that, but I came across something which reinforces that idea. I recently finished a book called the Mystery of The Aleph...it went into Georg Cantor's life and more aspects of the Alephs and Set Theory. I was pleased to read up on the man behind the mathematics.<br><br>Cantor was in and out of mental clinics during his life, and<br>made the issue of the existence of the continuum - does it or does it not exist? - his lifes work. (Though at one period, he became a very serious Shakespearean student and lectured upon the proofs that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare.)<br><br>But back to "Pi" and the relation beteween mathematical concepts and mental distubances. In a note in the book "The Mystery of The Aleph", the author notes "It should be noted that Cantor and Godel were not the only mathematicians working in the field of the foundations of mathematics to suffer from mental illness - depression and a persecution complex. Ernst Zermelo, the developer of the systems of axioms and the father of the axiom of choice, also suffered from at least one nervous breakdown. The mathematician Emil L. Post, who had anticipated some of Godel's results about infinity but missed proving them himself, suffered from the same illness. It is interesting to contemplate the reasons for this striking anomaly." <br>I <br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[bvonahsen]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Mathematics And The Imagination<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Ahhh, I remember that book, loved it. And I remember reading about the axiom of choice, and how there is this existence proof that, if Z theory is true, then is must follow that you can take and orange rind, cut it up, and reassemble it into a shpere the size of the earth. I like thinking about that not because..... I like the idea of living in a universe where that just might be possible. That we don't don't know so much as we think we do.<br><br>That is what I was trying to get to when I call Science Friday. That one of those physicists on the show needed to get down to south america and have a little chat with ayahuasca. But if I had said that they'd have thought I was nuts (which of course I am, but don't tell anyone). <br><br>I have an article froma a magazine, it's burried in my junk somewhere, about a couple of microbiologists who did some study. They took a hard look at the recipes shamen use to cure membver of their tribe. They came to the conclusion that the shamen must have had deep biological knowledge and that there was simply no way through trial and error they could have known it.<br><br>To me, it means there is more than one path to knowledge. Because when you get down to it, what we call science is a claim to exclusive knowledge. That there is but one path and is through the scientific method. Now I agree that it is indeed one path, I am just not convinced it is the only one. BTW, faith is the exact opposite of knowledge, I'm not trying to make room for what is today called "religion". I'll have to dig that article out sometime, if I even have it. <p></p><i></i>

[yesferatu]

Actually I have to believe that a man like Cantor would have been helped by ayahuasca. I think he could have "gotten by with a little help from his <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>friends</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->".<br><br>I guess in my last post, I should have mentioned in the list of mentally disturbed mathematicians this name: Newton.<br>No <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>proof</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> of "mental disturbances" but....check this out: Newton wedged a blade "betwixt my eye and ye bone as near to ye back side of my eye as I could" to see the effects of deforming the retina. <br><br>So if that is not mentally *off* then what is it? Curiosity?<br><br>Possibility of a "Pi" scene spoiler in next sentence.<br><br><br>I had to mention the Newton incident, since it kind of ties in to the scene near the very end of "Pi" with the drill. <p></p><i></i>

[IanEye]

POSSIBLE SPOILER?!?<br><br><br>One of my favorite moments in this film is probably a "happy accident".<br><br>At one point in the film we find out that the main character likes to play an Asian board game that uses a black and white grid.<br><br>Then later on this same character is having a nervous breakdown in a subway station. The way the film is shot [high contrast] the tiles in the station make it look like the main character is on the playing surface of the game's grid, reduced to nothing more than "a pawn in their game"...... <p></p><i></i>

[yesferatu]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> POSSIBLE SPOILER?!?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Yeah. Possibly. If someone does not want to know there is a drill in a scene, then they might find a mention of it before they saw the movie as "ruining" it for them.<br><br>THUS I prefaced it with saying the next sentence would give a description of a scene. If someone wants to read that next sentence, they can. Or won't. <br><br>You seem to feel I just blurted out a scene without thinking. Or am i mis-reading your question?<br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[IanEye]

Hi Yesferatu,<br><br>Actually, I was just refering to the mention of the Asian board game in my own post as a spoiler. I had no problem with your mention of a scene at all.....<br>;} <p></p><i></i>

[postrchild]

I believe the entire soundtrack was done by the Kronos Quartet.....but then again I could be wrong....nevertheless an awesome group of musicians. <p></p><i></i>