Maths and God

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 04:35pm

I finished reading contact yesterday, and the story had a neat little thing:
Messages in Math, patterns in Pi, etc. The idea was that there were hidden
messages very deep in Pi, such that if you looked hard enough it would
actually say something. Early in Pi was found patterns of 1s and 0s when pi
was in base-11 math. The 1s and 0s ended up forming an image of a circle.

My questions is, what if we really found such a pattern? Something so
improbable as to be damned impossible in an infinite amount of time, let
alone in something to fundementally real and not-random as pi. Or e, or
some other transcendental number. What would that mean if something so
fundemental as Pi contained a message, an actual message? What would
that imply for us as humans, and about the history of the universe? That
math, something so fundementally universal and intangible, was designed.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2003-07-19 04:55pm

Uh...use 22 sevenths?

In an infinitely long number, there's always the chance of finding a pattern. There might be some freaky ones in it, but isolated by the hordes of unmatchable numerals.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 05:04pm

StarshipTitanic wrote:Uh...use 22 sevenths?

In an infinitely long number, there's always the chance of finding a pattern. There might be some freaky ones in it, but isolated by the hordes of unmatchable numerals.

yeah, but what if it couldnt be random? what if it was a statistical anomaly so impossible.. like, say, the message contained a set number of digits that equalled a prime number, or there were messages hidden at regular intervals?

Forget the possibility tho, what if it WERE true? What impact would that have is the question.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 06:20pm

Does noone fucking think anything of this? cmon, post damnit

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2003-07-19 06:22pm

What kind of answer would you like? How would you respond to your question?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-07-19 06:22pm

I think it would suggest that some people have entirely too much time free to calculate out uselessly long strings of numbers.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-07-19 06:23pm

I'm no mathematician, but it seems to me that if the number is infinitely long, it wouldn't be surprising at all to find patterns in it. After all, it does go on forever and never repeats. That in itself is more amazing than any patterns to be found within, at least to my uninitiated self.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2003-07-19 06:24pm

So what are the chances that pi will never ever ever repeat?

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-07-19 06:28pm

Rye wrote:So what are the chances that pi will never ever ever repeat?

Pretty good. Vegas gives 12:1 odds, in pi's favor.

Actually, I don't know.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2003-07-19 07:01pm

In an infinite amount of time or tries, anything that can happen, will happen. Since the Pi is infinte in lenght you should find the collected works of Shakespear writen in ASCII code hidden somewhere in Pi, provided that you calculate Pi far enough. Now the probability of that happening is so low that it's insane, but given an infinite amount of tries it will happen.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 07:04pm

It is an assumption that pi is endless and never repeats. infact, it kind of is self negative, because if its ridiculously long (say, 10^[10^100] digits) we can never know either way. And if its infinitely long, there IS probability of repetition (a rather large possibility, actually). And if one day we happened across an apparently unending string of zeros, we'd just assume it was a statistical anomaly and the non-zero numbers will start again rather then that we came across the final numbers. (or theres also the possibility that our fomulas for pi are inaccurate and dont represent the real pi).

I take it, tho, that you all would just think "Oh. Cool, lookint that. Who'd've thought."?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 07:14pm

Lets assume that there were more then one message, spaced at successive prime numbers, and they appeared at those number places in every transcendental number (but not the same numbers, just patterns). That would be impossible by just chance, that all transcendental numbers had the same pattern of message appearance.

Whatever the evidence, assume that there is no possible way for it to be random.

What would that mean to you.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2003-07-19 07:20pm

Wouldn't mean anything to me, it just means that something wrote something on the universe.

TheDarkOne · Post by **TheDarkOne** » 2003-07-19 08:13pm

kojikun wrote:It is an assumption that pi is endless and never repeats. infact, it kind of is self negative, because if its ridiculously long (say, 10^[10^100] digits) we can never know either way. And if its infinitely long, there IS probability of repetition (a rather large possibility, actually). And if one day we happened across an apparently unending string of zeros, we'd just assume it was a statistical anomaly and the non-zero numbers will start again rather then that we came across the final numbers. (or theres also the possibility that our fomulas for pi are inaccurate and dont represent the real pi).

I take it, tho, that you all would just think "Oh. Cool, lookint that. Who'd've thought."?

um...no, pi has been proved to be irrational, ie you can't represent it in the form a/b, where a and b are both integers, ie it never stops and never repeats. Just do a quick search for something like "pi irrational" and you'll get quite a few pages with the various proofs of this on them.
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~rsimms/nea ... proof.html
http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath313.htm
http://newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/askasc ... ATH072.HTM

PrinceofLowLight · Post by **PrinceofLowLight** » 2003-07-19 08:17pm

Why would a new message at every prime number be impossible? That's still just highly improbable, and highly improbable is what you get with infinite strings.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 08:55pm

PrinceofLowLight wrote:Why would a new message at every prime number be impossible? That's still just highly improbable, and highly improbable is what you get with infinite strings.

In the same places, with a certain logic to them? And pi isnt random, there IS reason behind it, not just pattern.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2003-07-19 09:00pm

It is an infinite number, therefor every stupid idiotic pattern ever created by man is in it.
Convert it into binary and feed it into a computer and somewhere in it you have the entire game of pong programed in. Hell you have the entire game of Halflife, unreal tournament, BF1942, warcraft 3, and Gem Fighters minimix all in binary code in there.
Infinity is fun, egh!

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 09:02pm

Dark Hellion wrote:It is an infinite number, therefor every stupid idiotic pattern ever created by man is in it.
Convert it into binary and feed it into a computer and somewhere in it you have the entire game of pong programed in. Hell you have the entire game of Halflife, unreal tournament, BF1942, warcraft 3, and Gem Fighters minimix all in binary code in there.
Infinity is fun, egh!

Yes, but lets say the same things or SIMILAR things appeared in identical places in all transcendental numbers?

The question isnt is it possible, just "What would that mean to YOU if it were really an impossible thing come true".

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2003-07-19 09:03pm

You mean like a B coming up somewhere in the binary converted Pi.
Arma-freaking-geddon baby!

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 09:07pm

Dark Hellion wrote:You mean like a B coming up somewhere in the binary converted Pi.
Arma-freaking-geddon baby!

mm exactly

no i mean like if (not literally) 29 places into pi some binary-like code began and drawed out a circle, and then 29 places into e there is a graph where y=x^e or something like that. something unique to each transcendental number but when taken together with the others very indicative of not-chance.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 09:18pm

on the note of pi -> infinity:

WARNING: Do NOT calculate Pi in binary. It is conjectured that this
number is normal, meaning that it contains ALL finite bit strings.

If you compute it, you will be guilty of:

* Copyright infringement (of all books, all short stories, all
newspapers, all magazines, all web sites, all music, all movies,
and all software, including the complete Windows source code)

* Trademark infringement

* Possession of child pornography

* Espionage (unauthorized possession of top secret information)

* Possession of DVD-cracking software

* Possession of threats to the President

* Possession of everyone's SSN, everyone's credit card numbers,
everyone's PIN numbers, everyone's unlisted phone numbers, and
everyone's passwords

* Defaming Islam. Not technically illegal, but you'll have to go
into hiding along with Salman Rushdie.

* Defaming Scientology. Which IS illegal -- just ask Keith Henson.

Also, your computer will contain all of the nastiest known computer
viruses. In fact, all of the nastiest POSSIBLE computer viruses.
Some of the files on my PC are intensely personal, and I for one
don't want you snooping through a copy of them.

You might get away with computing just a few digits, but why risk it?
There's no telling how far into Pi you can go without finding the secret
documents about the JFK assassination, a photograph of your neighbor's six
year old daughter doing the nasty with the family dog, or a complete copy of
the not-yet-released Pearl Harbor movie. So just don't do it.

The same warning applies to e, the square root of 2, Euler's constant, Phi,
the cosine of any non-zero algebraic number, and the vast majority of all
other real numbers.

There's a reason why these numbers are always computed and shown in decimal,
after all.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-07-19 09:39pm

I thought I read somewhere that even infinity (which is a purely mathematical concept anyway) doesn't mean everything is possible.

I mean I can give you an infinite number of throws of a die to try and get a number higher than 6 but you never could.

It's nearly 0300 and my coffee is wearing off, so that may be horseshit I just typed.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-19 09:41pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:I thought I read somewhere that even infinity (which is a purely mathematical concept anyway) doesn't mean everything is possible.

I mean I can give you an infinite number of throws of a die to try and get a number higher than 6 but you never could.

It's nearly 0300 and my coffee is wearing off, so that may be horseshit I just typed.

infinite combinations were talking about. and correlation between two numbers having identical or similar things in the same place etc cant be random.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-07-19 09:46pm

I'm suprised that no one has gone "OMG! e^(i*Pi) + 1 = 0! THat pr0v3z g0d exists!!!!11111!"

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-07-19 09:48pm

kojikun wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:I thought I read somewhere that even infinity (which is a purely mathematical concept anyway) doesn't mean everything is possible.

I mean I can give you an infinite number of throws of a die to try and get a number higher than 6 but you never could.

It's nearly 0300 and my coffee is wearing off, so that may be horseshit I just typed.
infinite combinations were talking about. and correlation between two numbers having identical or similar things in the same place etc cant be random.

Upon reflection, that example was bollocks for this instance.

As a person who is glad to have only the basic maths academia and need no more, I can say that I really have no clue since infinity boggles my mind, my cat's and even my father's, but then so do third rate soap operas boggle my dad (engineer, no heavy maths crap).

Thing is, why does this really matter if Pi repeats itself or not? As it is a supposedly infinite figure then surely a repeat must be there somewhere, there are afterall only 10 integers that are individually different (0-9).

Ah heck, that's going to keep me up thinking now.

It hurts when I think.

...

OMG! e^(i*Pi) + 1 = 0! THat pr0v3z g0d exists!!!!11111!