Sagans use of pi as a means for aliens to communicate with us is - TopicsExpress



          

Sagans use of pi as a means for aliens to communicate with us is an interesting conceit, because it implies that the digits of pi are not accidentally arranged. I read a post earlier along similar lines: that, converted to ASCII, the infinite digits of pi contain all song lyrics, the names and birthdays of your loved ones, the phone number and inside leg measurement of your bosss proctologist etc etc. Quite possibly true, but it assumes something about the digits in pi, other than that someone is trying to communicate health professionals information to us in an unconventional way. Pi, obviously, isnt a random number, but one of the many vexatious questions attached to it is whether its digits follow a normal distribution -- ie, is there the same probability of a 0 at any arbitrary position as there is of a 9 or any other number? The first several billions digits of pi have been checked and, yes, they do appear to follow a normal distribution. If this is true for all of pi, then, when converted to ASCII, every meaningful piece of information will be represented somewhere in its infinity. But, crucially, analyzing the first several billion digits of pi doesnt really mean anything. Theres a possibility that, somewhere in pi around the 900 trillionth position, the remainder becomes ...9999999... repeated for infinity, with an 8 or a 7 thrown in every forty seven millionth digit. Because, as we noted earlier, pi isnt a random number. No, the only guaranteed way to truly produce your bosss proctologists vital statistics and contact details is to generate a completely random, infinite series of numbers. Try it! Maybe hell give you a discount. Or at least buy you dinner and flowers.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 22:58:05 +0000

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