THE CODE:
Since the human race has been able to have thoughts there has always been questions about our existence. What makes the world work, is everything just some random series of events that form into life or are there patterns in everything? If there are patterns, what are they, why do they form what they do, and what is the meaning of them? Professor Marcus du Sautoy of Oxford University attempts to answer these questions by explaining how numbers might be the key to unlocking the mystery of the universe. On his search Professor Marcus du Sautoy explains how a hidden code of numbers are built into the laws of the universe and how even bubbles that children can play with are riddled with the code that seem more man made than randomness. For the professor, the universe all be governed by a mathematical formula that contains patterns of numbers, numbers that he believes connects us all to everything.

MATH MADE FUN:
The Code was a very interesting and fun documentary to watch, even though no real answers are given to the questions that it was giving. Not that I was expecting a concrete answer to matters that question the reasons of the universe because this documentary is made to get the viewer interested in the ideas. Actually the cover to the box gives the best description as to how this documentary works, “Engage your mind/Expand your world” and it does just that.

I’ve been aware of the idea that life can be broke down to numbers and/or mathematical equations. In this documentary the host, Professor Marcus du Sautoy, talks about how numbers can form patterns in everything that we do and the world around us. His theories were very interesting and did make me think about how numbers do some odd things while life and the world does even odder things. For example the professor took a jar of jelly beans to have people guess how many jelly beans were in the jar. It’s something so many people have done in their lives that it just seems like a random fun thing to do. What Marcus du Sautoy did with this simple game is take all the numbers the people guessed (which none got the right answer), added them up, then divided them with the total number of people guessing, and what he got was an average number of beans that was being guessed. What’s shocking about this is that the number that he came up with was only 5 beans off from the exact number of them in the jar.

 
Through out the documentary Marcus du Sautoy takes the ordinary and makes them into something that is a mystery. Like how bubbles that are stuck together start to form geometric shapes that are uniform, how salt rock have 90 degree angles that would make architects jealous, or how a living fossil has a curvature that don’t seem to fit in nature. It’s all of these and more examples that are brought up in this documentary that make it interesting and fun to watch. Granted I might not be any smarter from watching it, I don’t know how to work out the equations that would show me the numbers that drive the universe, but I did get interested enough to want to know more. The 3 episodes move along quickly, going from subject to subject without being boring or going too fast to not be able to following along. I would have liked to had more than 174 minutes of the documentary and a little more in depth about the theories that Marcus du Sautoy has but this documentary works really good to get me interested in the topic.