Happy Pi Day 351
Jonathan writes "Today, the 14th of March, is Pi Day 2008. Pi Day is internationally celebrated in honor of the mathematical constant "Pi," who's actual value will — now and forever — remain unknown. NeoSmart Technologies has a run-down on the history of Pi, Pi Day, and the significance of Pi and other such "magical numbers" to science and technology. 'Pi isn't just a number that you can use to calculate circle-related mathematics, it's a symbol of something by far greater. Pi is one of many "magic" numbers that are found everywhere — if you know where to look. These magic numbers can't be explained, they just are. And if you use them right, they make it a lot easier to do a lot of really complicated things... In a way, they're a testimony to technology and computers (or vice-versa, depending on how you look at it).'"
Re:Opportunity Missed.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wrong day (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Opportunity Missed.. (Score:2, Insightful)
It takes excellent timing to do it at 03:14:59.26535897.....
Even so, I can't wait until 02:06:53.58979 May 9, A.D. 3141. Or should that be March 14, 1592, oh wait, too late. Maybe we can do it at 03:14:15 in '92.
Re:Unknown value? (Score:2, Insightful)
m/dd/yyyy indeed? (Score:5, Insightful)
So we didn't miss it - but we will be missing it, as none of us are going to be living to be that old.
Then again, this is all based on the current calendar (arbitrary) and how you interpret the numbers (arbitrary) as well as the date/time notation (arbitrary, as pointed out above) ( the last two being related to eachother as there's no, say, 31st of april.)
Re:Unknown value? (Score:1, Insightful)
1.0 (in base pi) is 1*pi^0 is 1.
Re:Unknown value? (Score:5, Insightful)
1.0 (base pi) is still 1 (base anything).
Re:Unknown value? (Score:3, Insightful)
"infinite amount of information"? Only if you're the sort of person who calls any bigger-than-linear increase "exponential". Words have meanings, and scientific/mathematical words have very precise meanings.
Here's a complete representation of the value of \pi:
That's only 368 bits of information, and I'm sure there are more compact encodings of the value.
Re:Wrong day (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:m/dd/yyyy indeed? (Score:2, Insightful)
Neither does 11.00100100001111110110 (binary) nor 3.243F6A8885A308D31319 (hexadecimal)
The equation pi = c/d is what is true and real (and irrational - but I digress.)