Re: [math-fun] math novels?

Keith Lynch> Carl Sagan's novel _Contact_ is mostly about communications with extraterrestrials. But a far more interesting subplot is about a very different sort of communication. The aliens point out to mankind that if you calculate pi in base eleven, near the beginning there's a square number of consecutive digits that are all 0 or 1, and when plotted as a square they give a picture of a circle. A little further into the number there are reams of meaningful binary data. Thus Marc LeBrun's suggestion that a monster π calculation be bound up and published as _The Saganic Verses_. --rwg