"9:13." "Personal note." "When I was a little kid, my mother told me to never 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 me." "That day I had my first headache." "Max, Max, will you do it?" "Jenna..." "What's 322 times 491?" "158,102." "Right?" "Right." "Okay." "73 divided by 22?" "3.3181818... 181818..." "12:45." "Restate my assumptions." "One:" "Mathematics is the language of nature." "Two:" "Everything 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 human 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." "12:50, press return." " Hello?" " Maximilian Cohen?" " Yes?" " Hi, it's Marcy Dawson." "You might remember me." "I'm a partner at the predictive strategy firm..." " I told you already." " I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch, but I was hoping we could have lunch tomorrow." "Say, one o'clock?" " Max." " Hey, Devi." "I grabbed you some somosas." "Great." "Your hair." " What are you doing?" " Your hair." "You can't go like that." " It's fine." " Don't worry." "It's fine." " You need a mom." " I've got to go." "Max." "Here, your somosas." "Thanks." "16:23." "Results:" "Euclid predicts NTC will break 100 tomorrow." "A good bet." "Other interesting anomalies:" "Euclid predicts PRO NET settling at 65 and a quarter." "A career high." "Am I bothering you?" "I'm sorry, I'll put it out." "Name's Lenny Meyer." "And you are?" "Max." "Is that Max?" "Max?" "Max..." " Max Cohen." " Cohen." "Jewish." "It's okay." "I'm Jewish, too." "Do you practice?" "No." "I'm not interested in religion." " Ever heard of the Kabbalah?" " No." "Jewish mysticism." "Look, I'm kind of busy right here." "I understand." "It's just that right now is a very exciting moment in our history." "Right now is a critical moment in time." " Really?" " Yeah, it's very exciting." "Ever you ever put on Tefillin?" "You know, Tefillin?" "I know, it looks strange." "It's an amazing tradition." "It has a tremedous amount of power." "It's a mitzvah for all Jewish men to do." "Mitzvah." "Good deeds." "They purify us." "Bring us closer to God." "You want to try it?" "You all right?" "You all right, Max?" "Please." "Please, let it be a small one." "17:55." "Personal note." "Second attack in 24 hours." "Administered 80 milligrams Promozine HCl and 6 milligrams Sumattrapan orally as well as one milligram Di-hydroric-atamine mezilayte by sub-cutaneous injection." " Hello?" " Mr. Cohen?" "Marcy Dawson here again." "From Lancet-Percy." "I was looking over my schedule and I realized I'll be in Chinatown tomorrow around three." "I would love to stop by and see you." "I'm so anxious to meet you." "It will be worth it for both of us." "How does three sound?" "How did you get my address?" "Don't worry." "I got it from Columbia." "So 3 it is." "Looking forward to it." "Wait a minute." "Max." "Stop thinking, Max." "Just feel." "Use your intuition." "So what did you think of Hamlet?" "I didn't get to it." "It's been a month." "You haven't taken a single break." "I'm so close." "Have you ever met the new fish my niece bought me?" "I named him Icarus." "After you, my renegade pupil." "You fly too high, you'll get burned." "I look at you and I see myself 30 years ago." "My greatest pupil." "Published at 16." "Ph. D. at 20." "But life isn't just mathematics, Max." "I spent 40 years searching for patterns in Pi." "I found nothing." "You found things." "I found things." "But not a pattern." "Not a pattern." "11:22." "Personal note:" "Saul died a little when he stopped research on Pi." "It wasn't just the stroke." "He stopped caring." "How could he stop when so close to seeing Pi for what it really is?" "How could you stop believing that there is a pattern, an ordered shape behind those numbers, when you were so close?" "We see the simplicity of the circle, the complexity of the numbers." "3. 14 off into infinity." "Are the stars out tonight?" "I don't mind if they're cloudy or bright." "For I only have eyes... for you, dear." "I don't mind if we're in a..." "Hey, Max." "Lenny Meyer." "Sorry, I'll put it out." "So..." "What do you do?" " I work with computers." "Math." " What kind of math?" "Number theory." "Research mostly." "No way." "I work with numbers myself." "Not traditional." "With the Torah." "Amazing!" "Hebrew is all math." "All numbers." "Did you know that?" "The ancient Jews used Hebrew as their numerical system." "May I?" "Each letter is a number." "Like the Hebrew" ""A", Aleph is one." ""B", Bet, is two." "You understand?" "But look at this." "The numbers are inter-related." "Take the Hebrew word for father, Ab." "Aleph." "Bet." "One, two... equals three." "The Hebrew word for mother, Haim?" "Aleph, mem..." "One, forty, equals forty one." "The sum of three and forty one, forty four." "Now the Hebrew word for child, mother, father, child." "Yelev." "That's ten, thirty, and four." "44." "Torah is just a long string of numbers." "Some say it's a code sent to us from God." "That's kind of interesting." "That's just kid's stuff." "The word for the Garden of Eden, Kadem." "Numerical translation, 144." "The value of the Tree of Knowledge, in the garden..." "Aat Ha Haim. 233." "144, 233." " Now you can take those numbers..." " They're Fibonacci numbers." "What?" "You know, like the Fibonacci sequence." "Fibonacci?" "Fibonacci is an Italian mathematician in the 13th century." "If you divide 144 into 233, the result approaches theta." "Theta?" "Theta." "The Greek symbol for the golden ratio." "The golden spiral." "I never saw that before." "That's like the series you find in natue." "Like the face of a sunflower." "Wherever there are spirals." "You see, there's math everywhere." "Hey, Max." "13:26, restate my assumptions:" "One:" "Mathematics is the language of nature." "Two:" "Everything 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." "So what about the stock market?" "A universe of numbers that represents the global economy." "Millions of human hands at work, millions of minds." "A vast network screaming with life." "An organism." "A natural organism." "My hypothesis:" "within the stock market, there is a pattern." "Right in front of me." "Playing with the numbers." "Always has been." "10:18, press return." "What the...?" "Shit." "Goddamn it." "10:28, results:" "Bullshit." "Euclid predicts AAR at six and a half." "AAR hasn't been beneath 40 in 20 years." "Explanations for anomoly:" "Human error." "Oh my God." "11:11." "Results:" "Failed treatments to date." "Beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, adrenaline injections, high dose ibuprofen, steroids, violent exercise, caprigot suppositories, caffeine, acupuncture, marijuana, percodan, midrin, tenormen, sanser, homeopathics." "No results." "No results." "Euclid crashed." "I lost all my data, hardware." "Your mainframe?" "Burned." "What happened?" "First I get these crazy low picks." "Then it spit out this long string of numbers." "I never saw anything like it." "And then it fries." " The whole machine just crashed." " Do you have a print out?" " Of what?" " Of the picks, the number." "I threw it out." "What was the number it spit out?" "I don't know." "Just a long string of digits." "How many?" "I don't know." "What was it?" "100?" "1000?" "216?" "How many?" "Probably around 200." "Why?" "I dealt with some bugs back in my Pi days." "I was wondering if it was similar to what I ran into." "Have you met Archimedes?" "The one with the black spot." "You see?" "You remember Archimedes of Syracuse?" "The King asks Archimedes to determine if a present he has 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 on his bed for nights on end." "Finally, his equally exhausted wife, she is forced to share a bed with this genius, she 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 thus, 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?" "That a breakthrough will come." "Wrong!" "The point of the story is the wife." "You listen to your wife, she will give you perspective, meaning you need a break." "You have to take a bath or you will get nowhere." "There will be no order, only chaos." "Go home, Max." "And you take a bath." "Excuse me, can I take a look at that paper?" "Oh, my God." "6 and a half." "Paper, please." "Mr. Cohen." "Perfect timing." "I was waiting for you but I thought you stood me up so I was going to head home." "Who are you?" "Marcy Dawson, from Lancet-Percy." "We were supposed to meet here at 3." "It's really not a good time." "I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to finally meet you." "I've studied your papers for years." " Why don't we take a spin?" " I can't, I'm sorry." "Mr. Cohen, please." "Yes!" "I threw out something." "I didn't realize I needed it." "Just a print-out." "I lost my data." "I'm sorry." "Max, hey." "How are you?" "Lenny Meyer." " Wait, where are you going?" " Up there." "You got a minute?" "You got 5 minutes?" "Do you want to try Tefillin?" "Not right now." "I've got a car." "Right over here." "We can cruise over to the Shul." " You have a car?" " Yeah, right over there." "See?" "That's my friend, Ephraim." " Okay, let's go." " Great." "When you told me your name, I didn't realize you were the Max Cohen." "Your work is revolutionary, you know that?" "It's inspired the work that we do." " It has?" " Yeah, very much so." "The only difference is we're not looking at the stock market." "Wrap that around your hand." "We're searching for a pattern in the Torrah." "What kind of pattern?" "We're not sure." "All we know is that it's 216 digit's long." "Okay, stand up, please, Max." "216?" " That's right." "Stand up." "216?" " This goes on your head." "Look at me, Max." "Right here." "Now we're going to say a little prayer together." "Repeat after me:" "Shma Yisroel." " Shma Yisroel." " Right." " Adenoi Eloihenu." " Adenoi Eloihenu." " Adenoi Echod." " Adenoi Echod." "Now, what's up, Max?" "What is this 216 muber, Saul?" "Excuse me?" "You asked me if I had seen a 216 digit number, right?" "Oh, yeah." "You mean the bug." "I ran into it working on Pi." "What do you mean, ran into it?" "What is all this about?" "There are these religious Jews I've been talking to." " Religious Jews?" " Yeah, you know." "Hasids," " the guys with the beards." " I know about them." "I met one in a coffee shop." "It turns out the guy is a number theorist." "The Torrah is his data set." "He tells me they're looking for a 216 digit number in the Torrah." "Come on, it's just a coincidence." " There's something else." " What?" "You remember those weird stock picks I got?" "Yesterday's stock picks?" "Yes." "It turns out they were correct." "I got two picks on the nose." "Smack on the nose, Saul." "Something's going on." "It has to do with that number." "There's an answer in that number." "Max." "Come with me." "The ancient Japanese considered the Go board a microcosm of the universe." "Although when it is empty it appears to be simple and ordered, the possibilities of game play are endless." "They say 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 is the truth of our world, Max." "It can't be easily summed up with math." "There is no simple pattern." "But as the Go game progresses the possibilities become smaller." "The board does take on order." "Soon all the moves are predictable." "So?" "So?" "So maybe, even though we're not sophisticated enough to know it, there is a pattern." "An order." "Underlying every Go game." "Maybe it's like the pattern in the stock market." "The Torah." " This 216 number..." " This is insanity, Max." "Or maybe it's genius!" " I have to get that number." " Hold on!" "Slower, you're losing it." "You have to take a breath." "Listen to yourself." "You're connecting a computer bug I had with a computer bug you might have had and some religious hogwash." "If you want to find the number 216 in the world you will 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 will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere." "320, 450, 22, whatever." "You have chosen 216, and you will find it everywhere in nature." "But Max..." "As soon as you discard scientific rigor, you are no longer a mathematician." "You are a numerologist." "Mr. Cohen." " Mr. Cohen." " Goddamn it." "I'm sick of you following me." "I'm not interested in your money." "I'm looking for a way to understand our world." "I don't deal with petty materialists like you." "I'm sorry." "I'm very sorry." "I admit we have been a bit too agressive." "But all I ask is that you give me 5 minutes." "Look." "As a sign of good faith we wish to offer you this." "I told you, I don't want your money." "the suitcase isn't filled with fifties, or gold, or diamonds." "Just silicon." "A Ming Mecca chip." "Ming Mecca?" "They're not even de-classified yet." "You're right." "They're not." "But Lancet-Percy has many good friends." "Beautiful, isn't it?" "Do you know how rare these are?" "What do you...?" "Mr. Cohen?" " Are you okay?" " No." "Mr. Cohen." "Sir, are you sick?" "Come on, buddy." "Get up." "Coney Island." "Last stop." "Here." "For your nose." " Farrouhk?" " No, it's Max, from next door." "Max." "Is everything all right?" "Do you have any iodine?" "Did you cut yourself?" "No, I just need it to stain a slide." "Ah." "Science." "The pursuit of knowledge." "One second." "You surprised me." "I thought you were Farrouhk." "Here we are." "What are you examining?" "A potato?" "No, just something for my computer." "Thanks." " Shalom." "This is Lenny." " Lenny, it's Max Cohen." "Max!" "What are you doing now?" "Come down, we'll hang out." "I was thinking about our conversation the other night." " That's good." " I want to help." "4:42." "New evidence." "Remember Pythagoras?" "Mathematician, cult leader..." "Athens, circa 500 B. C." "Major belief:" "The universe is made of numbers." "Major contribution:" "The golden ratio." "Best represented geometrically as the golden rectangle." "Visually, there's an equilibrium between the length and width." "When it's squared, it leaves a smaller golden rectangle behind with the same unique ratio." "The squaring can continue, smaller and smaller and smaller... to infinity." "11:18." "More evidence." "Remember Da Vinci?" "Artist, inventor, sculpture, naturalist, Italy, 15th century." "Rediscovered the balanced perfection of the golden rectangle and penciled it into his masterpiece." "Connecting a curve through the concentric golden rectangles you generate the mythical golden spiral." "Pythagoras loved this shape, for he found it everywhere in nature." "A nautilus shell, Ram's horns, whirlpools, tornadoes, our fingerprints, our DNA, and even our Milky Way." "9:22." "Personal note." "When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare at the sun." "So once when I was six I did." "At first the brightness was overwhelming." "But I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink." "And the brightness began to dissolve." "My pupils shrank to pinholes..." "and everything came into focus." "And for a moment I understood." "My new hypothesis:" "If we're built from spirals, while living in a giant spiral, the everything we put our hands to is infused with the spiral." "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." "Mr. Cohen?" "I am so happy you..." "Look." "What do you want in exchange for the chip?" "You tech guys." "I think you know what we want." "I don't know if I'll find anything useful." "We're willing to take the risk." "First I want you to call off the surveillance." "Done." "Anything else?" "Yeah." "I'm a very private person." "Just knock and leave the suitcase." "I don't want to talk to anybody." "How do I know you're home?" "I'll knock back." "The Torah." "Coffee." " What is it?" " In Hebrew characters and numbers." "No, the 216 number." "What is it?" "I don't know." "If you can find it, maybe we can figure it out." "Can you really find it?" "If there's a number in there, I'll find it." "Max." "Jenna." " Can we do it, Max?" " Not now, Jenna." "Please, Max." "Happy birthday, Euclid." "18:30." "Press return." "18:33." "Press return." "What is that?" "What the fuck?" "Fuck you!" "Fuck you!" "Fuck you!" "Fuck you!" "Yes, hello?" "He's busy right now, I'm sorry." "You were screaming." "Who told you you could put all those locks on the door, Mr. Cohen?" "Are you okay?" "You're out, you hear me?" "You're out of here!" "I've had it with you." "Just look at all this." "Come on, let's go." "That's it!" "Get out!" "Get out!" "Goddamn it, no!" "You're the one out of here, mister!" "Get out!" "Get out!" "Get out!" "Get out!" "Are you okay?" "Get out!" "You bastard." "19 and a half." "39 and an eighth." "6 and three quarters." "7 and an eighth." "12 and a quarter." "I know these numbers." "They're going down." "Down." "Down." "You lied to me." "You have it?" "Okay." "Sit down." "I gave up before I pinpointed it, but my guess is that certain problems cause computers to get stuck in a particular loop and the loop leads to a meltdown." "But just before they crash, they become aware of their own structure." "The computer has a sense of its own silicon nature and it prints out its ingredients." "The computer becomes conscious?" "In... some ways." "I guess." "Studying the pattern made Euclid conscious of itself." "Before it died it spit it out." "The consciousness is the number?" "No, Max." "It's only a nasty bug." "It's more than that, Saul." "No, it's not." "It's a dead end." "There's nothing there." "It's a door, Saul." "A door." "To the front of a cliff." "You're driving yourself over the edge." "You need to stop." "You were afraid of it." "That's why you quit." "Max, I got burned." "Come on, Saul." "It caused my stroke." "That's bullshit!" "It's mathematics, numbers, ideas..." " We're supposed to go to the edge." " There's more to life than math." " You taught me that!" " It's death, Max." "You can't tell me what it is." "You've retreated to your Go and your books" " and your goldfish." " Max, go home." " But you're not satisfied." " Get out of my house." "I'm going to know what it is." "I'm going to see it!" " Get out of my house!" " I'm going to understand it!" "Who are you working for?" " Who sent you?" " Me." "Who the hell sent you?" " I'm just a student." " Give me that." "I've got an assignment for class." "Leave me alone." "Marcy." "What's the matter?" "Let's go for a ride, Max." "I can't." "I have work." "We had a deal, Max." "Now get in the car." "Don't ever touch me!" "Max!" "Max!" "Help!" " Leave me alone." " Max, come here!" "Where are you going, Max?" "Help!" "Goddamn it, Max!" "Help!" "Come here, Max." " Where did he go?" " He's over there." "Max." " Leave me alone!" " I got him!" "Get off of me!" "Help!" "Help!" "Help me!" "Get over here!" "Now!" "Sit down and shut the hell up!" "Calm down!" "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with matches?" " The market is going to crash, Max." " I didn't do anything." "I don't play the market." "You have to be careful where you throw out your trash." "How could you do that?" "You gave us faulty information." "You dangled the carrot, the picks, then only gave us part of the code." " Now give us the rest of the code..." " You selfish, irresponsible bastards." "How could you be so stupid?" "Come on, Max." "You just don't get it." "I don't give a shit about you." "I only care about what's in your fucking head." "If you won't help us, help yourself." "We are forced to comply with the laws of nature." "Survival of the fittest, Max." "And we've got the fucking gun!" " Max!" "Come here!" " Lenny?" " Lenny!" " Come here, Max." "Come on, get in here." "Hurry." "Stay down!" "Stay down!" "We've been looking for you." "What's going on?" " Do you have the number?" " What's going on?" "Do you have the number?" "What the hell are you doing?" "Get off of me." "We're not kidding around here, Max." "Now where's the number?" "It's not on me." "It's in my head." "What?" "You memorized it?" "Did you give it to them?" " Who?" " Those Wall Street bastards." " What do you care?" " Answer me." " Screw you!" " Hit him." "Listen to me." "You're dealing with something really big now, Max." "I don't want to have to hurt you, so answer me." " Did you give it to them?" " They've got part of it." "Let me go!" "Goddamn it!" "Goddamn it!" " They're using it." " Using what?" "Shut up!" "Impetuous little runt!" "Let go!" "No, don't!" "Max." "Max." "Max." "Max." "You're all right." "I'm Rabbi Cohen, like you." "I'm sorry for what Lenny did." "He's been reprimanded." "It's not our way." "Are you okay?" "Yeah." "Max." "You have to give us the number." "What is it?" "The Talmud tells us it began 2000 years ago when the Romans destroyed the second temple." "Max, you will understand everything if you listen." "The Romans also destroyed our priesthood, the Cohanim." "And with their deaths, they destroyed our greatest secret." "In the center of the temple was the heart of the Jewish life, the Holy of Holies." "It was the earthly residence for our God." "The one God." "It housed the Ark of the Tabernacle, which stored the original" "Ten Commandments which God gave to Moses." "Only one man was allowed to enter this Holy of Holies, on one day, the holiest day of the year..." "Yom Kippur." "On the Day of Atonement all Israel would descend upon Jerusalem to watch the High Priest, the Cohen Godul make his trip into the Holy of Holies." "If the High Priest was pure, he would emerge moments later and we were secured a prosperous year." "It meant that we were one year closer to the Messianic Age." "But if he was impure, he would die instantly and it meant that we were all doomed." "The High Priest had one ritual to perform in the Holy of Holies." "He had to intone a single word." "Yeah?" "That word was the true name of God." "So?" "The true name, which only the Cohanim knew, was 216 letters long." "Are you telling me that" "the number in my head is the true name of God?" "It's the key to the Messianic Age." "It can take us one step closer to the Garden of Eden." "As the Romans burned the temple, the Talmud tells us the High Priest walked into the flames." "He took the key to the top of the burning building, the heavens opened and received the key from the priest's oustretched hand." "We have been looking for that key ever since." "And you may have found it." "That's what happened." " I saw God." " No." "You are not pure." "You cannot see God unless you are pure." "I saw everything." "You saw nothing." "Only a glimpse." "There's so much more." "We can use the key to unlock the door." "We can show God that we are pure again." "You're not pure." "How are you pure?" "I found it." "Who do you think you are?" "You are only a vessel from our God." "You are carrying a delivery that was meant for us." "It was given to me." "It's inside me." "It's changing me." "It's killing you because you are not ready to receive it." "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 has it gotten you?" "The number is nothing." "It's the meaning." "The syntax." "It's what's between the numbers." "If 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." "17:13." "Personal note." "Getting faster." "Something was... 7:10." "You stare into space like that you could go blind." "What can the eyes do without the brain?" "Nothing." "If the brain can't leave a picture with images, it sees nothing." "12:13." "My brain was too far behind." "My eyes could feel it." "14:50." "15:10." "16:55." "10:35." "9:15." "Already I'm beginning to see." "Can I help you?" "Saul?" " Were you a friend?" " What do you mean?" "He had a second stroke." "No!" "No!" "No!" "Goddamn it!" "Three!" "Nine!" "Five, six, eight, three...!" "Five." "Eight." "Nine." "Seven." "No, Max, no." "Two." "Six." "Stay with me, Max." "Oh my God, Max." "No!" "17:22." "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." "Max, Max." "Look." "Pretty, huh?" "Can we do it Max, can we?" "How about... 255 times 183?" "I got it, I got it." "What's the answer?" "I don't know." "What is it?" "46,665." "See?" "How about 748 divided by 238?" "I got it." "What's the answer?"