Pi
This thirteen year old article in the New Yorker is about two mathematicians who are believed to be the inspiration for Daren Aaronofsky’s movie Pi. It also includes this great quote:
It is one of the great mysteries why nature seems to know mathematics. No one can suggest why this necessarily has to be so. Eugene Wigner, the physicist, once said, “The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”
July 18th, 2005 at 4:59 pm
I don’t want to give away the ending of the article, but I will say this: the author drills a hole in his head.
July 18th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
Look, people, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but you might want to think about not reading the article. As soon as I did, a bunch of angry rabbis showed up at my door.
July 18th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
I find that hard to believe, because frankly folks, the article is about as long as pi itself.
July 18th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
You don’t have to read the whole thing, though, once you see the pattern. The entire article can be distilled down to “B”.
That’s what’s so amazing about it.