If it is possible that Pi contains a coded version of the complete works of Shakesoeare, then is it possible that Pi already contains a different coded message, which we will never detect as long as the natural language of this different message remains unknown to us?
Harry On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 3:06 PM, John Berry <berry.joh...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 2:43 AM, Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> wrote: >> I suspect there is an invalid assumption about randomness that we are making >> when we go along with the old thought experiment of a corps of eternally >> typing monkeys eventually producing Shakespeare's folio or imagining that >> the folio can be found at some point transcoded in the decimals of Pi. I >> wonder if there is already a mathematical proof out there to the effect that >> the latter is an impossibility. > > I suspect you are not fully appreciating what endless and non-repetitive > means. > If it never can end and does so without repeating then eventually in > the fullness of infinity every long shot must occur. (actually, only > if it is random. So the monkeys might win out) > And with less frequency, every really really long shot must occur. > > What Monkeys or Pi writing Shakespeare actually implies however makes > lite of just how long the search will go in each case before success, > which is so inconceivably long, the scale of volume of the universe to > Plank length falls impossibly short of conveying the immenseness of > the time it would take in either case compared to say the believed age > of the universe. > > And only after every other book that has or could be written pops up > first, and of course almost but not quite perfect versions would pop > up also. > > Every extra character required will multiply the task of how far you > will need to go through Pi. > > Of course you are right about one thing, in theory it is possible that > it might never occur. > I do not know, does 86 show up in the first 20 digits of Pi? the first > 100 digits? > For that matter does it show up at all? > There is nothing meaning it must, ever. > > But then again that becomes an increasingly improbably longshot the > further you search. > > 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286 > > Ah, didn't take long. > > Actually it is possible that I am all wrong since Pi is not random. > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXoh6vi6J5U > > Fun video. > > >> >> I have not seen the video, > You should. > > But it is worth mentioning that non-zoomed in and slowed down versions > do not reveal the activity as far as I can make out. > Which might mean that we the were to be zoomed and slowed we could > check the validity of what the other version shows. >
