I like pi

[lindiril]

Who doesn't like pi?

Joe sent me this a little while ago. Apparently, my surname appears in the first four billion binary digits of pi, as does Joe's (plus a little extra). What are the chances? Well, assuming that pi was normal (it's not), according to the chart on the main page, 11% for the former and about 0.0003% for the latter

Comments

[kalmakka]

Pi isn't normal? I didn't think they had proved that. Is it just your devout belief that it isn't normal?

You should check out this for more pi. If you also like poetry, read Cadaeic Cadenza is a good read.

[lindiril]

Joe told me pi isn't normal.

If it's relevant, that site (the main page one) has some links to papers regarding a formula for calculating digits of pi and about what that means for the question of whether the digits of pi are random or not. I haven't read them. Joe told me pi isn't normal, and I just assumed he had some reason for believing so.

[lindiril]

Apparently, according to the paper on the significance of the formula for calculating digits of pi independently, some constants, including pi, are "widely believed" to be normal, and I think it claims to prove base-2 normality for pi as well.

[bradbeattie]

Pi is normal. 10 (in base pi) = pi. See?

What? ... What?

[lindiril]

Is this base pi... tasty?

[bradbeattie]

Sure, why not?

But yeah, every irrational number is rational in it's own base. I think the question that's important here is this:

Is a number that's irrational in base 10 still irrational in any other integer base greater than 1?

I admit I only skimmed the PDF, but I wasn't convinced. I still don't think so.

[lindiril]

I didn't realize rationality was in question. I thought we were looking at the statistical distribution of the digits. Is that related? I admit my theoretical mathematics isn't strong.

[toriaa]

mmmmmm..... pie........

[anonymous]

What I meant when I said pi is not normal is that it's not random, it's a constant.

Specifically I stated that the probability that "harris;elf" appearing in the first four billion digits of pi is 0.0003% (which would be true if pi were normal) so when I searched for harris (97%) and happened to have noticed that ";elf" followed right after it all randomness had already been lost. There is a 100% chance that "harris", "harris;elf", and "vilcsak" appear in the first four billion digits of pi, because they do.

That's what I meant. *sheepish smile*

[lindiril]

I guess I just misunderstood.

[kwirq]

Of course pi isn't a normal number. Normal numbers are like three or eight or maybe even twelve. How often do you use pi for normal things, like cups of sugar? Phaw.

:D

/totally wants a pi tattoo, despite not actually wanting a tattoo