Maximillian Cohen Something's going on. It has to do with that number. There's an answer in that number.
Played by Sean Gullette 
Pi (1998) · 25 quotes
Pi (1998) · 25 quotes
Most-quoted character in Pi (1998): in 15 of its 25 quotes
Most scenes with: Sol Robeson (2)
Failed treatments to date: Beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, adrenalin injections, high dose ibuprofen, steroids, Trager Mentastics, violent exercise, cafergot suppositories, caffeine, acupuncture, marijuana, Percodan, Midrine, Tenormin, Sansert, homeopathics. No results. No results...
More lines from Maximillian Cohen
10 quotes Maximillian Cohen Maximillian Cohen You see the simplicity of the circle. You see the maddening complexity of the endless string of numbers, 3.14 off into infinity.
Maximillian Cohen 12:45, Restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. 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.
Maximillian Cohen 9:13, 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. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. 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 of me. That day I had my first headache.
Maximillian Cohen I'm trying to understand our world. I don't deal with petty materialists like you.
Maximillian Cohen 12:50, press return...
Maximillian Cohen 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.
Maximillian Cohen My new hypothesis: If we're built from Spirals while living in a giant Spiral, then is it possible that everything we put our hands to is infused with the Spiral?
Maximillian Cohen If the number's there I'll find it!
Maximillian Cohen 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's it gotten you? The number is nothing! It's the meaning. It's the syntax. It's what's between the numbers. You haven't understood it. It's because it's not for you!
Scenes with Maximillian Cohen
4 scenes
This is insanity, Max!
Maximillian Cohen Or maybe it's genius!
Rabbi Cohen
Who do you think you are? You are only a vessel from our God. You are carrying a delivery that was meant for us.
Maximillian Cohen It was given to me.
Rabbi Cohen
It's killing you.
Certain programs cause computers to get stuck in a particular loop. The loop leads to meltdown but just before the crash, they become aware of their own structure. The computer has a sense of its own silicon nature and it prints out the ingredients.
Maximillian Cohen The computer becomes conscious?
In some ways, I guess.
Maximillian Cohen Studying the pattern made Euclid conscious of itself. I had to... Before it died it spit out the number. That consciousness is the number?
No, Max. It's only a nasty bug.
Maximillian Cohen It's more than that, Sol.
No, it's not. It's a dead end. There's nothing there.
Maximillian Cohen It's a door, Sol. It's a door.
A door at the front of a cliff. You're driving yourself over the edge.
Rabbi Cohen
The Talmud tells us it began 2,000 years ago, when the Romans destroyed the second temple.
Maximillian Cohen What is this?
Rabbi Cohen
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 of 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 of Israel would descend upon Jerusalem to watch the High Priest, the Cohen Godul, make his trip to 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 closer to the Messianic Age. But, if he was impure, he would die instantly and it meant that we were doomed. The Holy Priest had one ritual to perform in the Holy of Holies, he had to intone a single word... That word, was the true name of God.
Maximillian Cohen So?
Rabbi Cohen
The true name, which only the Cohanim knew, was 216 letters long.
