27 May 05
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesWhen I worked at a bank, one of these wackos would come in. He would buy rolls and rolls of dimes. Then write very simple histograms of his results.
Does anybody believe in all that Bible Code crap, or do you all acknowledge that it's nothing more than fun with numbers?
"Wow! Look. There's a 1933 dime in here. This could not happen by mere chance!"
Anyway, one time I made the mistake of asking what he was up to. Come to find out he was writing some book about how Bush would not get elected in 2004. It was based on taking the alpha-numeric sum of "AMERICA," concatenating 13 with 50 (original colonies and current states), adding these numbers, and then something else. Anyway it ended up with a number corresponding to a president who had lost his bid for re-election in the past. The motivation for the book was to prove that God existed. Seems like something Darfius would cook up.
Well, needless to say, he got pretty upset with me when I asked him, "Why 1350 and not 5013?"
"Because the 13 colonies came before the 50 states. Geez."
The man was a genius. I have to admit that. Too bad he was wrong.
27 May 05
1 edit
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesI bet you could take the works of Shakespeare and get similar results.
Does anybody believe in all that Bible Code crap, or do you all acknowledge that it's nothing more than fun with numbers?
I heard Hebrew used letters to represent numbers. But that's true of Greek also.
Did anyone see the move Pi?
27 May 05
Originally posted by ColettiYes. It was terrible; I am taught by working mathematicians and know a few of them quite well -- to portray practitioners of an entire field of study in that way was pandering to silly perceptions. The presentation of mathematics was silly too. The only things that saved the film were the character of Saul, the playing of Go and Clint Mansell's contributions to the soundtrack.
I bet you could take the works of Shakespeare and get similar results.
I heard Hebrew used letters to represent numbers. But that's true of Greek also.
Did anyone see the move Pi?
27 May 05
Originally posted by ColettiYeah, I saw it. I wish we could solve nonlinear dynamic systems with extreme sensitivities to initial conditions on one of those IBM computers. 🙂
I bet you could take the works of Shakespeare and get similar results.
I heard Hebrew used letters to represent numbers. But that's true of Greek also.
Did anyone see the move Pi?
I like the film, but Aronofsky's second major work, "Requiem for a Dream" was far better.