Friday, March 28, 2008

A True Irrational Number

I am not sure if anyone has touched on this in blogs posted before mine but I find it curious that the title of the movie is Pi. Max believes in the movie that everything in nature can be reasoned mathematically and math is patterns so there are patterns in nature or something along those lines but one thing that doesn’t really fit the pattern is the number pi. As an irrational number pi has a decimal expansion that continues on to infinity without following any yet noticeable pattern. I don’t remember if this ever factored into the movie but I find it kind of interesting.

I do think that patterns can be found in the universe, especially if you’re looking for them. It definitely makes it easier to find patterns if you already have something in mind to look out for, but even if you don’t I think the patterns are still there. One of the areas of math I do find interesting is fractals, which can be seen in nature in snowflakes and leaves and lightning. These things seen to have no logical pattern but when a snowflake is examined closely or the veins on a leaf the pattern clearly resembles a fractal. Maybe not everything in the universe follows logical order but if it did and someone proved it I’d be curious as to whether or not religious people would find this as proof of some god or if nonreligious would see it exactly opposite.


3 comments:

Ian B said...

In class I asked whether or not a series expansion of pi was pattern enough. Example include:
pi/4=1-(1/3)+(1/5)-(1/7)+(1/9)+...
pi/2=(2/1)*(2/3)*(4/3)*(4/5)*(6/5)*(6/7)*...

There are plenty more of those and even people with no math background can recognize the patterns within. So I guess I'm trying to say that there's no use trying to find a pattern in the string of digits that make up the decimal expansion of irrational numbers when you have such elegant ways of representing them with other methods. Oh yeah, this isn't the first time this has come up in this blog but, 1+e^i(pi)=0

Lucia said...

That is a good point that you make at the end about God. I think people who believe in God will find proof in anything to justify that belief. People who do not believe in the existence of a God will take it the opposite way. I guess it all goes back to the point made in the movie about selectively seeing patterns; you'll find them if you want to.

Brian M said...

I agree with Lucia that those who are passionate about anything will find some kind of proof, regardless of it's merit, to justify their beliefs.

The examples of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese and a leprechaun hiding out in a tree come to mind.