I was over a friends house this summer. The three of us were sitting in the backyard discussing my favorite subject: The mystery and the meaning of it all. The two of them are hardcore science fanatics. They pretty much worship at the temple of Stephen Hawking, Einstein and all those various other gods and theories. Everything can be explained by science and everything is understandable in a logical way that we can see or perceive. That is their stance. My stance is very different.

So, a long and beautiful argument ensued about the mystery of it all. It isn't just atoms is my stance. A mystery abounds and we understand almost none of it. The argument is pretty much a meaningless one for us. They have their stance and I have mine.

But at one point they conjectured about mathematics and how it is the language of the universe and through it we can explain everything. I got pretty wound up over this one. "Mathematics is a human creation! It is a system of rules we created in order for us the fit the universe into something we can understand, in a way that we understand. Nothing more. With that I leaned my head back in my lawn chair and looked up at the sky.

And boom! There it was. A cloud formation shaped like Pi. Exactlly over my head. I pointed up at the sky, having just made by point about mathematics and said "there you go, proof!" They both looked up in shock, ran in the house and got their cameras. Above you see one of the pictures they took.

The thing about this is that I have no clear idea of how to interpret this. Weird coincidence? Absolutely no meaning at all? Makes my point? Makes their point?

All I know is that having the thought of being able to figure out the mystery is rather a pie in the sky opinion and probably a bit of hubris on my part.