Rommie wrote:Sigma_Orionis wrote:grapes wrote:Rommie wrote:Wonder if she found an intelligent signal in it? (I surely can't be the only one who actually read Contact the book.)
I've read it. I was always skeptical--just imagine a superior intellect designing the universe (and number system) so that 4 - 4/3 + 4/5 - 4/7 + 4/9 ... has a infinite expansion that *eventually* encodes a digital circle
And might be normal to boot.
Actually,one could see Pi calculated to enough number of places as an implementation f the Infinite Monkey Theorem
They address that in the book by saying it occurs high enough up in the chain to be statistically anomalous.
IRC, Carl Sagan included that pi thing as an example of what would he accept as proof of a deity. I guess it's a bit silly because, well, insert comment about religion here.
I should have read the book instead of watching the movie