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
WARNING: Micro-spoiler to follow. The thing I mainly recall about Contact is that a message is sent by somehow *altering* the digits of pi. So that it was still pi, but with different digits. This struck me as so mathematically absurd that it was hard to swallow the rest of the book. But it was a very good book anyway. --Dan
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.
My recollection is that the PI bit was seen as sort of a message from God proving that there was a design. On the other hand, since PI has an infinite number of nonrepeating digits, such finite patterns MUST exist.
I wonder whether Sagan was falling prey to the confusion about whether pi is a mathematical constant or a physical constant. Personally, I think we should look for a message from God in the digits of seventeen. I mean, everyone says that after the decimal point there's just a whole lot of 0's --- but how far out have they looked? Jim Propp On Saturday, October 12, 2013, Dave Dyer <ddyer@real-me.net> wrote:
My recollection is that the PI bit was seen as sort of a message from God proving that there was a design.
On the other hand, since PI has an infinite number of nonrepeating digits, such finite patterns MUST exist.
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Exactly my point. Or rather, I wish it had been my point. --Dan On 2013-10-12, at 4:08 PM, James Propp wrote:
Personally, I think we should look for a message from God in the digits of seventeen. I mean, everyone says that after the decimal point there's just a whole lot of 0's --- but how far out have they looked?
participants (4)
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Bill Gosper -
Dan Asimov -
Dave Dyer -
James Propp