How about ANY FINITE SEQUENCE AT ALL?
My guess would be that - depending on the number of digits you are looking for in the sequence - you could calculate the probability of finding any given group of those digits.
For example, there is a 100% probability of finding any group of two, three or four digits, but that probability decreases as you approach one hundred thousand digits.
Of course, the difficulty in proving this hypothesis rests on the computing power needed to prove it empirically and the number of digits of Pi available. That is, a million digits of Pi is a small number if you are looking for a ten thousand digit sequence
But surely given infinity, there is no problem finding a number of ANY length. It's there, somewhere, eventually, given that nothing repeats, the number is NORMAL, as people have said, and infinite.
The probability is 100% for any number, no matter how large, isn't it?
Smart people?
it's actually unknown. It looks like it, but it is not proven
Also is it even possible to prove it at all? My completely math inept brain thinks that it might be similar to the countable vs uncountable infinities thing, where even if you mapped every element of a countable infinity to one in the uncountable infinity, you could still generate more elements from the uncountable infinity. Would the same kind of logic apply to sequences in pi?
Man, you're giving me flashbacks to real analysis. Shit is weird. Like the set of all integers is the same size as the set of all positive integers. The set of all fractions, including whole numbers, aka integers, is the same size as the set of all integers. The set of all real numbers (all numbers including factions and irrational numbers like pi) is the same size as the set of all real numbers between 0 and 1. The proofs make perfect sense, but the conclusions are maddening.
no. it merely being infinitely non-repeating is insufficient to say that it contains any particular finite string.
for instance, write out pi in base 2, and reinterpret as base 10.
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101...it is infinitely non-repeating, but nowhere will you find a 2.
i've often heard it said that pi, in particular, does contain any finite sequence of digits, but i haven't seen a proof of that myself, and if it did exist, it would have to depend on more than its irrationality.
Isnt this a stupid example though, because obviously if you remove all penguins from the zoo, you're not going to see any penguins
It does contain a 2 though? Binary ‘10’ is 2, which this sequence contains?
They also say "and reinterpret in base 10". I.e. interpret the base 2 number as a base 10 number (which could theoretically contain 2,3,4,etc). So 10 in that number represents decimal 10 and not binary 10
It's almost sure to be the case, but nobody has managed to prove it yet.
Simply being infinite and non-repeating doesn't guarantee that all finite sequences will appear. For example, you could have an infinite non-repeating number that doesn't have any 9s in it. But, as far as numbers go, exceptions like that are very rare, and in almost all (infinite, non-repeating) numbers you'll have all finite sequences appearing.
0.101001000100001000001 . . .
I'm infinite and non-repeating. Can you find a 2 in me?Are you trying to say the answer to their question is no? Because if so, you're wrong, and if not I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
The conclusion does not follow from the premises, as evidenced by my counterexample. It could be the case that every finite string of digits appears in the decimal expansion of pi, but if that's the case, a proof would have to involve more properties than an infinite non-repeating decimal expansion. I would like to see your proof that every finite string of digits appears in the decimal expansion of pi.
Well that's just being pointlessly pedantic, obviously they fucking know that a repeating number of all zeros and ones doesn't have a two in it. This is pure reddit pedantry you're doing
It kind of does come across as pedantic -- the real question is just that "Does pi contain all sequences"
But because of the way that it is phrased, in mathematics you do a lot of problems/phrasing proofs where you would be expected to follow along exactly in this pedantic manner
It's implicitly defined here by its decimal form:
0.101001000100001000001 . . .
The definition of this number is that the number of 0s after each 1 is given by the total previous number of 1s in the sequence. That's why it can't contain 2 despite being infinite and non-repeating.
Pi is often defined as 3.141 592 653... Does that mean Pi does not contain any 7s or 8s?
That's a decimal approximation of Pi with an ellipsis at the end to indicate its an approximation, not a definition. The way the ellipsis is used above is different. It's being used to define a number via the decimal expansion by saying it's an infinite sum of negative powers of 10 defined by the pattern before the ellipsis.
So we have:
0.101001000100001000001 . . . = 10^-1 + 10^-2 + 10^-3 + 10^-4 +10^-5+ . . .
Pi, however, is not defined this way. Pi can be defined as twice the solution of the integral from -1 to 1 of the square root of (1-x^2), a function defining a unit semi-circle.
0.101001000100001000001 . . .
Might very well be :
0.101001000100001000001202002000200002000002 ...
Real life, is different from gamified questions asked in student exams.
Implicitly defining a number via it's decimal form typically relies on their being a pattern to follow after the ellipsis. You can define a different number with twos in it, but if you put an ellipsis at the end you're implying there's a different pattern to follow for the rest of the decimal expansion, hence your number is not the same number as the one without twos in it.
https://github.com/philipl/pifs
πfs is a revolutionary new file system that, instead of wasting space storing your data on your hard drive, stores your data in π! You'll never run out of space again - π holds every file that could possibly exist! They said 100% compression was impossible? You're looking at it!
The term for what you're describing is a "normal number". As @lily33@lemm.ee correctly pointed out it is still an open question whether pi is normal. This is a fun, simple-language exploration of the question in iambic pentameter, and is only 3 minutes and 45 seconds long.
Merry Christmas!
It's remarkable how there are uncountably many non-normal numbers, yet they take up no space at all in the real numbers (form a null set), since almost all numbers are normal. And despite this, we can only prove normality for some specific classes of examples.
It helps me to think, how there are many "totally random" or non computable numbers, that are not normal because they don't contain the digit 1.
The jury is out on whether every finite sequence of digits is contained in pi.
However, there are a multitude of real numbers that contain every finite sequence of digits when written in base 10. Here's one, which is defined by concatenating the digits of every non-negative integer in increasing order. It looks like this:
0 . 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ...Yes, this is implied. It's also why many people use digits of pi as passwords and make the password hint "easy as pi".
