Another Theory About ‘Pi’ and Patterns

Regarding Michael O’Sullivan’s Aug. 6 story on Darren Aronofsky and his film “Pi”--I thought the film was fascinating.

It brings to mind an article the New Yorker ran a few years ago. This article featured Gregory and David Chudnovsky, two brothers who built a room-size supercomputer in their cramped New York City apartment so that they could attempt to break down the sequence of pi.

One comment of O’Sullivan’s puzzled me. He writes that the film “Pi” comes off as “a blend of naivete and chutzpah--implying that the . . . stock market might be reducible to a simple formula or . . . numerical pattern, a key that could open the door to understanding God and the universe.” But Fibonacci’s mathematical theorem does link with patterns in nature. The Fibonacci sequence is also used by investment newsletters like the Elliot Wave Theorist and the Global Market Strategist to analyze the stock market (my dad’s office gets the subscriptions).

The film “Pi” also reminded me of an Arthur C. Clarke story about Tibetan monks who hire American engineers to reprogram a computer to print out all possible configurations of the letters of their alphabet. By permuting this alphabet, their computer will be able to decode “The Nine Billion Names of God.”

FRANCESCA DORFMAN

Laguna Beach