Scientific Personality Disorder

Rating: 10/10 (6 September 2004)

This movie chronicles the most severe case of scientific personality disorder (SPD) I have ever seen. "What is SPD?" you might ask. This is a disorder of scientists where science becomes everything to them. In his case, he sees swirls of creamer in his coffee as chaos theory...number theory, as math. In biological circles, we see all human behavior as either neurochemistry or an attempt to gain an evolutionary advantage. The good ones can see both. Some may say SPD makes scientists great. After all, Einstein had trouble remembering his own phone number. Most scientists I talk to see it as a struggle just to remain a normal human being. It is a struggle to be able to communicate with others without giving the perception you are looking at an alien. You have trouble even feeling comfortable in daily, non-scientific interpersonal communication. A mathematician, while deep in thought about a particular theorem, may see his own wife walk through the door and ask, "Who are you?" (True story!) For those scientists who care about being functional members of society, they do everything they can to not fall into this permanently. Our protagonist in this movie, has severe SPD. SEVERE! How do you liberate yourself from that once you have fallen in? I promise you, you could never imagine what he thinks of.
Mathematically speaking, he falls across something that was absolutely outstanding. He can finally explain all reality through Pi. There are interesting numbers like Pi and Phi that always come up when we look at nature. Some people call them coincidental ratios, the makers of this film call these numbers the face of God. Pretty Freaking Cool Stuff! As in most movies, zaniness ensues.