Do you agree with the infinite pi theorem?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

We had a debate about this at one of our Ingress meetups. Not sure if that's the official name of it or even if it's a debated thing in philosophy rather than just something my teammate thought up, but anyway:

Someone made a joke about how a million monkeys with coders for whatever language Ingress is coded in would eventually code Ingress. Our teammate then pointed out that this joke actually has a place somewhere in reality: in pi. His argument is that as an irrational number without termination, pi includes all sorts of combinations and just about every numerical combination possible in there. For example my birthdate, 12-18-1983, written as 12181983, seems like a fairly meaningless numerical sequence, but it's most likely in pi somewhere. His argument is that it IS in pi somewhere as a near mathematical certainty and any number you can name exists in it somewhere, such as write out the numbers you'd press on an old phone to text your name. That's in pi somewhere. He then took it further and pointed out that if you converted all of pi's digits to binary, you would then eventually find the code for Ingress, the works of Shakespeare converted to binary, the US Constitution, influential early computer programs, devastating computer viruses, etc. Tweed's "The Group" post and then entire posting history of opebo exists on Dave's server somewhere as a string of ones and zeroes...and they also exist in pi as well converted. Somewhere out in a binary converted version of pi hypothetically is something that's identical to the contents of your computer, or the NSA's entire databases.

FWIW I disagree but primarily because I believe pi does have a terminating digit, even if it's beyond what we can calculate. But it does make you think. Also reminded me of Contact.

I suppose it's also worth noting that the million monkeys theorem was intended more as a joke to point out just how unfeasible something can be in reality yet but still be "almost surely" to happen in a mathematical context and thus that the phrase in mathematics has a completely different meaning than in common language, not an actual prediction or anything.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Yeah, this has been debated before.  I actually found this article on a Facebook page dedicated to interesting Wikipedia pages just last night.  Quite a coincidence...

But anyway, the premise makes sense to me.  If you give a monkey (or any device that produces an abstract combination of letters and symbols) enough time - even if it takes several trillion years (or longer), almost certainly will the complete works of Shakespeare be produced.  That is if the monkey or subject of the experiment is indeed given an infinite amount of time to perform that feat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yeah, this has been debated before.  I actually found this article on a Facebook page dedicated to interesting Wikipedia pages just last night.  Quite a coincidence...

But anyway, the premise makes sense to me.  If you give a monkey (or any decide that produces an abstract combination of letters and symbols) enough time - even if it takes several trillion years (or longer), almost certainly will the complete works of Shakespeare be produced.  That is if the monkey or subject of the experiment is indeed given an infinite amount of time to perform that feat.

Ah but this is a variation of it though. It's that the full numbers of pi already sort of serve as a completion of this experiment. Theoretically you could find any number in it...and thus the complete works of Shakespeare or any other work in code as well.

[Linus Van Pelt]

I believe pi does have a terminating digit, even if it's beyond what we can calculate.

Pi has been proven to be irrational, so it does not have a terminating digit. But this is consistent with it either containing or not containing every finite sequence. Whether it actually does contain every finite sequence is unknown.

[GMantis]

FWIW I disagree but primarily because I believe pi does have a terminating digit, even if it's beyond what we can calculate. But it does make you think. Also reminded me of Contact.

And why do you believe so? Because if correct, the claim that irrational numbers are not actually irrational, would turn mathematical theory upside down...

[°Leprechaun]

For example my birthdate, 12-18-1983, written as 12181983, seems like a fairly meaningless numerical sequence, but it's most likely in pi somewhere.

The string 12181983 occurs 3 times in the first 200 Million digits of Pi.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

For example my birthdate, 12-18-1983, written as 12181983, seems like a fairly meaningless numerical sequence, but it's most likely in pi somewhere.

The string 12181983 occurs 3 times in the first 200 Million digits of Pi.

The expected value for the number of times that string (or any other eight digit sequence) to occur in the first 200 million digits would just barely under 2 (it would be exactly 2 for the first 200,000,007) if the sequence of the decimal digits of pi were effectively equivalent to a random sequence of digits.  But 3 is certainly close enough to make it plausible.  However, whether pi or e have this property (which would make them a normal number for base 10) is currently unknown.  There are only a few classes of numbers for which it has been shown that they definitely are normal to a specific base, and fewer still for which it has been shown that they are absolutely normal (normal numbers for any base), but none of the fundamental irrational mathematical constants have been shown to have that property.

[muon2]

For example my birthdate, 12-18-1983, written as 12181983, seems like a fairly meaningless numerical sequence, but it's most likely in pi somewhere.

The string 12181983 occurs 3 times in the first 200 Million digits of Pi.

The expected value for the number of times that string (or any other eight digit sequence) to occur in the first 200 million digits would just barely under 2 (it would be exactly 2 for the first 200,000,007) if the sequence of the decimal digits of pi were effectively equivalent to a random sequence of digits.  But 3 is certainly close enough to make it plausible.  However, whether pi or e have this property (which would make them a normal number for base 10) is currently unknown.  There are only a few classes of numbers for which it has been shown that they definitely are normal to a specific base, and fewer still for which it has been shown that they are absolutely normal (normal numbers for any base), but none of the fundamental irrational mathematical constants have been shown to have that property.

Yes, better to call it the infinite pi conjecture.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

There are places to find how many times a certain string of digits appears in the first x digits of pi, as I assume Buddha used. Also, they've tried the monkey-Shakespeare experiment and the monkeys just typed a bunch of s's and defecated everywhere.