The Transcendental Pi

In one of his interviews, author Yann Martel, when asked about "Pi", the main character in the novel, said: "I work really hard on my novels and everything has a meaning. Pi is what's called an irrational number, so the nickname "Pi" is irrational. I just thought it was intriguing that this irrational number is used to come to a rational understanding of things. And to my mind religion - and after all Life of Pi is ultimately a religious novel - to me religion is the same thing. Religion is something slightly irrational, non-reasonable, beyond the reasonable, that helps us make sense of things."

In mathematics, the constant "pi" which is also called "circular constant", "Archimedes constant", or "Ludolph's number", is indeed irrational(its value cannot be written as a fraction whose terms are both integers). The author however failed to mention that "pi" is also transcendental (its value cannot be expressed as a root of a finite sequence of basic algebraic operations on integers).

Just like "pi", the book's about irrationality and transcendence.

Below are some quotes from the book:

"Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the Garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are permitted to doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."

"We are all born like Catholics, aren't we ..., without any religion, until some figure introduces us to God? After that meeting the matter ends for most of us. If there is a change, it is usually for the lesser rather than the greater; many people seem to lose God along life's ways.

"...People fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside...For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of public arena but the small clearing of each heart."

"Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? Why climb this Mount Everest of formalities that makes you feel like a beggar? Why enter this jungle of foreignness where everything is new, strange and difficult?
The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life...
People move because of the wear and tear of anxiety. Because of the gnawing feeling that no matter how hard they work their efforts will yield nothing, that what they build up in one year will be torn in one day by others. Because of the impression that the future is blocked up, that they may do all right but not their children. Because of the feeling that nothing will change, that happiness and prosperity are possible only somewhere else."

"Nil magnum nisi bonum: No greatness without goodness."

"You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it."

"Fear is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life."