(off-screen) You surprised me, I thought you were Farrouhk. Here we are. What are you examining —

(at the door) — a potato!?

She hands Max a bottle of iodine.

TIGHT on Max writing `a:b::b:a+b’. Major contribution: The Golden Ratio. Best represented geometrically as the Golden Rectangle. Visually, there exists a graceful equilibrium between the shape’s 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.

TIGHT on Max carefully measuring out a golden rectangle.

A knock at the door draws Max to look through the peep-hole. Devi is outside with a bag of food. Max doesn’t answer the door. He just watches her. She knocks again before leaving.

— [50] — Max returns to his desk.

He draws the rectangle over a copy of Da Vinci’s famous drawing of man’s anatomy.

The rectangle fits perfectly over Da Vinci’s man. 11.18. More evidence: Remember Da Vinci. Artist, inventor, sculptor, naturalist, Italy, fifteenth century. Rediscovered the balanced perfection of the Golden Rectangle and penciled it into his masterpieces.

TIGHT on Max squaring rectangle after rectangle. Then he draws the Golden Spiral through the rectangles. Connecting a curve through the concentric Golden Rectangles, you generate the mythical Golden Spiral.

DISSOLVE FROM DA VINCI TO:

Telescope image of the Milky Way.

Start in tight on the epicenter and pull out to reveal the entire galaxy.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.

DISSOLVE TO:

— [51] — looking, forcing myself not to blink. And then 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, then everything we put our hands to is infused with the spiral.

DISSOLVE TO:

Max is put on hold. He notices a Man in a business suit watching him. Max turns away.

— [54] — Coffee.

(changing subject) Can you really find it?

TIGHT SHOT of an ant crawling around Max’s desk. Max smashes it with a pencil.

Max paces until there’s another knock at the door.

Max peeks through the peep-hole. Two well-dressed large men, Brad and Abe the Babe, wait for the signal. Max knocks and the suits leave.

Then, Max slyly opens up his front door and quickly grabs the black attaché case in front of his door.

Donning a surgical mask and latex gloves, Max opens the case. Sitting in foam is a tiny but beautiful chip. Max studies it with awe.

Max carefully carries the chip over to the new, leaner Euclid. He welds it into Euclid’s waiting wires.

Then, Max fires up Euclid. The newly toned machine whirls to life, buzzing like an eager puppy.

— [56] — characters pop on to Euclid’s screen. Max pounds in several strings of code lightning fast.

The Hebrew letters suddenly switch to their numerical counterparts. Max toggles between Hebrew and numbers a few times — impressed. He pounds in some code. Beautiful.

Then, he lifts his hand to slap the return button, but a sudden wave of fear stops him.

(voice-over)

18.30. Press RETURN . . .

He gets up and grabs a ginseng soda from the fridge. He takes a sip from the soda and places it on the counter.

Max can hear Devi and Farrouhk starting to make love. Their gentle sounds drift through the wall. Max paces around the room.

(voice-over)

18.30. Press RETURN . . .

Max darts over and smacks RETURN. Moments later we see what Max sees:

On the screen is a long string of zeros.

At the bottom of the screen Euclid’s cursor blinks, waiting for instructions.

Max smacks RETURN again. He gets the same empty result.

Euclid’s cursor blinks, waiting. Max yanks out the disk, crumples it up and throws it behind him.

But then, he notices his thumb twitching. He rubs his scar.

— [57] —

His neighbors’ love sounds start to get rough. They’re having fun.

Max almost throws up.

CUT TO:

Nothing happens. He checks the barrel — it’s empty. Ohhh . . .

He goes to grab a bottle of medicine but knocks all the bottles into the sink.

He cuts his finger as he grabs one of the broken bottles. He loads the gun and fires the medicine into his arm. A wave of pain and nausea floods in. He grabs another bottle and fires it into his arm. Then, he fires another and another.

Frustrated, he collapses into the mirror. Stop, please stop.

Slightly sobbing he examines his scalp, pulling his hair apart. He sees something:

So he takes out a pair of scissors and starts removing some hair.

Meanwhile, his neighbors’ lovemaking gets more intense. Their screams carry into Max’s head.

Max finishes removing a patch of hair from the right side of his

— [58] — head. He has uncovered a light scar on his scalp. He examines it in the mirror.

Then, his neighbors’ lovemaking turns outright evil. It sounds like Sodom and Gomorrah next door and Max can barely stand it.

A jolt of pain surges into his head. He grabs his scar as he vomits blood into the sink.

He starts banging his head against the mirror. He bangs his head again and again until the mirror CRACKS!

His neighbors are cumming and their cries of joy are twisted and agonizing. Fuck You! Fuck You! Fuck You!

The mathematician looks at himself and begins to sob. He reloads the gun and fires it right into the scar on his head, where the pain is coming from.

Max collapses to the ground in complete agony until the bare bulb in the bathroom starts blinking on and off. Suddenly, the pain is gone.

Then, he hears something. It’s Euclid, buzzing with life. He gets to his feet and heads into Euclid.

The main monitor is screaming with numbers. The lights in the room flicker on and off like on a disco dance floor. A filo substance billows out of Euclid.

And then, a number pops on to the screen. Max estimates how many digits are on the screen.

It appears to be THE number. Max whacks the PRINT button. Nothing happens. He tries again. Nothing.

So, Max grabs a piece of paper and a pencil. He starts writing down the number. He mumbles each digit as he sees it.

— [59] — But then, he stops writing. Power surge! He stares at the number. Something clicks in his head. His eyes go wide. He barely musters an — Oh . . .

We move closer and closer into the number, deeper and deeper into the screen. Until finally a single pixel fills the screen and we’re in the —

BLINDING WHITE VOID

— where we hear several deep peaceful breaths.

Then, a fuse blows.

BLACKOUT.

A phone ringing . . . once . . . twice . . . then we hear —

FADE BACK INTO THE MAIN ROOM.

Max’s eyes slowly open.

Max is sprawled out in front of Euclid. A large amount of blood, from his nose, is semi-dried out on his chin and chest. Devi hangs up the phone.

Mrs Ovadia and Farrouhk, brandishing a crowbar, stand over him.

Max looks at Euclid. The screen is blank. He looks at the mainframe. It is covered with the filo substance. Then he looks at the piece of paper he wrote the number on. Only a few dozen numbers are on the page. The last number he wrote is barely a scribble.

Mrs Ovadia starts looking at all the junk in the room.

The phone starts ringing, again.

Max rubs his chin and looks around the room. He starts saying the number to himself. He gets more and more excited as he recites each digit.

CUT TO:

With a thick black marker, he carefully outlines the part of his head that is causing the pain.

— [63] — CUT TO:

And then, his attention switches to the ticker. Nineteen and a half. Thirty-nine and a half. Six and three-quarters. Seven and a half. Twelve and a quarter.

Max states the numbers right before they enter on to the screen. I know these . . . Seven and a quarter. Two and a half . . . oh . . . oh . . .

Max strains to figure out what is going on. Suddenly, he’s overwhelmed with fear. They’re going down, down, down. My God. It’s gonna crash, it’s gonna fucking crash.

CUT TO:

Sol sighs. He looks down at the board and collects himself.

Max does. I gave up before I pinpointed it. But my guess is that certain problems cause computers to get stuck in a particular loop. The loop leads to meltdown, but right before they crash they . . . they become `aware’ of their own structure. The computer has a sense of

— [65] — its own silicon nature and it prints out its ingredients.