From: "Lindy Mayfield" Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 1:13 AM > I wonder if instead of monkeys typing away forever and coming up with a Shakespear sonnet, if that > same sonnet could be found ASCII encoded somewhere in the sequence of PI? There's a theorem in math that PI (or any irrational number) contains every finite substring, but as far as I know, it's still an open problem; there is no proof the the theorem is true or false. > So for example, instead of an MP3, I just have a file that says, start at the nth digit of PI (or sqrt of 2?) > and go for n digits and play the song. This would be true if the theorem is, but for a lot of strings, expressing the starting index would be longer than the string itself even if you take advantage of very large number notation like Knuth's notation. > This may be similar to the paradox where the spaceman comes to Earth, scans all our known literature > and creates one big number. He then represents this number as a fraction, takes out a rod made of a > special space material and makes a mark on it. Decoding all the Earth literature when he gets back is > only a matter of precise measuring and a bit of calculation. That would assume matter is infinitely divisible so he can put the the mark anywhere he wants. Our present understanding of quantum mechanics says that matter is granular in nature. JAson -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.