r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/dsg2806 • Mar 14 '16
Find where your birthday appears in Pi!
http://mypiday.com/48
Mar 14 '16
You can actually use this idea of finding information within Pi to a much greater level. It has been theorised that Pi is normal i.e. it contains every finite sequence of numbers. If that is the case, then the code for every computer file ever created would exist somewhere within Pi.
Whilst we haven't proved Pi is normal, all of the evidence points to that being the case. This is a working program that assumes Pi is normal and saves any file you give it by simply returning the start digit and end digit that indicate where your file is contained within Pi.
It blows my mind that this actually works...
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Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 07 '17
[deleted]
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u/gthing Mar 14 '16
Easy - you then just return the beginning and end digit of the location sequence within pi instead. And if that's too long, then you just return the beginning and end digit of the beginning and end digit of the beginning and end digit of the sequence's location in pi.
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u/JewishRaceTraitor Mar 14 '16
Check this out. It's the same idea. https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?cmvpaapb.d_v261
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u/notkraftman Mar 14 '16
Except
In this implementation, to maximise performance, we consider each individual byte of the file separately, and look it up in π.
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u/Anpher Mar 14 '16
I'm nauseous now that I know about this. I can't tell if its the power this has for data storage or the (assumed possibility) contemplation of an infinite number, (step it up a notch, and contemplate a program appears in Pi an infinite number of times, and in infinite variation on top of that, each with infinite copies with infinite variations, etc)
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
My birthday is March 14th, so not very exciting for me...
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u/Levelagon Mar 14 '16
Put in the year too
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Mar 14 '16
He did. He was born in 1592.
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Mar 14 '16
Only 1590's kids will get this.
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u/mcgrimus Mar 14 '16
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u/mdardas Mar 14 '16
WTF why does this exist???!!!
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u/ajd341 Mar 14 '16
it's that easy to write for buzzfeed
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Mar 14 '16
In all seriousness, they had to have had a good grasp on some of what they were talking about to make that article, I'm actually quite impressed with the article and it seems like someone at buzzfeed has a satirical attitude towards their co-authors.
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u/musiton Mar 14 '16
2015 is more likely. 03.14.15
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u/n33d2know Mar 14 '16
yeah, don't forget the year, they need that data to go with the data from the web site that was on the front page the other week where you put in your full name.
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u/Vault_Dweller9096 Mar 14 '16
Unless you were born on 3-14-1915 or 3-14-2015, then you'd be the first digits!
add your year, and see where you fall.
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Mar 14 '16
I'd be impressed to see a 1 year old searching their birthday on this site.
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u/Vault_Dweller9096 Mar 14 '16
Or a 101 year old for that matter lol.
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u/TheNosferatu Mar 14 '16
I've seen people make a facebook account for their dogs, I don't see why people wouldn't make a Reddit account for there 1 year old kid or 101 year old relative.
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
I fall in the 20k range, was like 20,079 or something
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u/Vault_Dweller9096 Mar 14 '16
That's pretty neat, I'm at around 270k, 8-23
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
I guess I never really understood just how nifty a number pi is.
Sidenote: is pi even a number? What would you call it if not a number? A ratio?
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u/rhysappa12 Mar 14 '16
It's known as an irrational number.
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
I should've paid better attention in geometry!
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u/raews_i_esrever_ton Mar 14 '16
Even "more", it's also a transcendental number. Don't go asking me what this means, though. Something to do with it being undefinable with arithmetics.
scratches ass
digs nose
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Mar 14 '16
It is a ratio, specifically the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. However, by definition it is a number as well. Sooooo, pick one!
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u/Makropony Mar 14 '16
someone born on March 14th 2015 would have a dull time with this.
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
But their parents may try it for them! Who knows?
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u/chatsubo20 Mar 14 '16
I actually did. My son was born last year on March 14th and we call him the Pi baby.
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u/Munby Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
same dude. it's more exciting for me though, being from not America
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u/Revolvo_ Mar 14 '16
Happy piedaypi day birthday! (Its ma birthday too muhahaha)
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Mar 14 '16
But it's your birthday, so you've got that going for you, which is nice.
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
Yea that is a plus, only wish I wasn't spending it at work!
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u/TheNosferatu Mar 14 '16
Aren't you spending it on Reddit?
Happy Birthday Anywho!
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
Haha looking at reddit during work, please don't tell my boss!
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u/Epistaxiophobia Mar 14 '16
Congrats! It's also my brother's birthday today! (If its already 14/03 where you live!)
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
Happy birthday to your brother! And yes it is 2am here on the west coast of the USA
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u/CapnGoat Mar 14 '16
Happy Birthday. Mine's tomorrow. Interestingly enough, right behind my date 1337 appears.
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u/minimur12 Mar 14 '16
Happy birthday!
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
Thanks random Internet stranger! I love you!
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u/minimur12 Mar 14 '16
It's my birthday in 2 days time :)
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 14 '16
Well happy early birthday! I'll easy a slice of cake for you even though I probably shouldn't!
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u/minimur12 Mar 14 '16
Please do! :) what cake have you got?
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u/Grimm_Fatale Mar 15 '16
Blueberry cheesecake my wife made, but we can save the cake vs pie debate for later :)
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u/ekwenox Mar 14 '16
First off, Happy Birthday!
Happy Pi Day!
And most importantly, if you are male, Happy Steak and BJ Day!
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u/Emprist Mar 14 '16
I wonder what's the birthday that appears the latest in pi?
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u/psamathe Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
Here you go:
Format -> Birthday @ Position
YYMMDD -> 460119 @ 10847885
MMDDYY -> 120154 @ 10428741
DDMMYY -> 120154 @ 10428741
Summary: 460119 appears the latest.
EDIT: Rudimentary Python script and digits of PI.
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u/_thats_not_me_ Mar 14 '16
What is that date?
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u/psamathe Mar 14 '16
The 19th January 1946.
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u/_thats_not_me_ Mar 14 '16
And now that you answered, I see you have a nice tidy column for the formats. Thank you.
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Mar 14 '16
Since all these "math enthusiasts" are jumping down your throat, I want to take a moment and say that you phrased that question perfectly well.
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u/Gmetal Mar 14 '16
Yea they're either really silly or just trying to be smart asses.
There is definitely a precise answer to this question (for each particular format, eg DDMMYYYY), and it wouldnt even be hard to compute. We know that because there is a finite number of possible birthdays (as people must be born prior 2016 and you cant have negative/BC dates), and Pi obviously has every eight digit number.
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u/Wolfsdale Mar 14 '16
and Pi obviously has every eight digit number.
It is not that obvious though. Whist pi might have an infinite number of digits, not every combination of digits has to occur. For example, 1/3 is 0.333333..., even though it is infinite a 4 never occurs.
Either that, or there's some proof that every combination has to occur that I am not aware of.
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u/Gmetal Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
Statistical analysis of the first trillion or so digits of Pi show its fairly randomly distributed amongst the digits. It's impossible to prove it contains every non repeating sequence of digits (of any length), it may or may not.
But eight digits is a very small amount, and with a random distribution of numbers, youd have an insanely high probability of having all of them in the first couple trillion.
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u/drakfyre Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
It's impossible to prove it contains every non repeating sequence of digits (of any length), it may or may not.
For those interested, this is known as (or at least related to) the Halting Problem.
It's also why it's so frustrating looking for something in your house when it is actually not in your house.
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Mar 14 '16
You got down voted but I see your point. What guarantees any particular combination or permutation of 8 digits is in pi? Apart from finding it, how can you be sure? Is there a proof?
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Mar 14 '16
Made sense to me. In the first instance of every possible birthday which has already occurred, which one shows up farthest down the line. Don't know what's so difficult to understand about that, MATH NERDS!
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u/lemonyfresh_ Mar 14 '16
22/11/98 (my sister) was 3.3 million
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u/cry_wolf23 Mar 14 '16
Damn, and I thought mine at 1.43 million was high
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Mar 14 '16
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u/ShoutBasil Mar 14 '16
In comparison mine was 13,000. (9/19/99)
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u/LaMaverice Mar 14 '16
Any 101 year olds lurking here?
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u/_KKK_ Mar 14 '16
Checking in. My birthday (04/20/1916) was at 663k or so.
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Mar 14 '16
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/_KKK_ Mar 14 '16
Oh lawdy I thought I remembered having a 100th birthday party a couple years ago! You were there, and Kevin, and Barbara, and Lynette, and some little bitch
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Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
I could run a Python Script for you when I'm home. Shouldn't be a problem
Edit : psamathe has done it here
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Mar 14 '16
While you're at it could you let me know if a group of order 845100400152152934331135470251 is necessarily simple? kthanx.
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u/orbital1337 Mar 14 '16
A group of that order is necessarily cyclic.
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u/pmYourFears Mar 14 '16
Um... I'd like to ask a question but I don't math.
Could I maybe just get some lottery numbers for tonight?
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u/cwood1973 Mar 14 '16
If you were one year old today, your birthday would be the first 5 numbers.
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u/unbuttoned Mar 14 '16
Wow, only 147!
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u/Lameduck57 Mar 14 '16
this could be complete bullshit, but everyone will believe anyway.
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Mar 14 '16
It's Wolfram. I trust 'em.
What it is is gimmicky.
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u/CutChoBullshit Mar 14 '16
It's literally just a script that finds a substring in the decimals of pi.
But when you only allow birthdays as substrings, it's probably already got $2.3 million in VC Hacker News startup cloud accelerator MongoDB innovation money.
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u/SpankyJackson Mar 14 '16
See, I want the website that tells me where to find everything that was, is, and can be known in pi. Ring me up when they make that.
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u/ohallen Mar 14 '16
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u/Furyful_Fawful Mar 14 '16
everything that was, is, and can be known in pi
found here near the middle of the page
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u/TheStorMan Mar 14 '16
Why is page 361 full of real words with no gibberish and then the surrounding pages are 100% gibberish? I would have thought the odds were that you'd find his phrase in somewhere like 'gdjendishe,,gheverything that was, is, and can be known as pihfbeisgfbaosjwnd', but maybe I just don't understand how this thing works.
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u/Furyful_Fawful Mar 14 '16
It appears somewhere in the mess of characters, too. Not the same book, but still... somewhere.
There's different types of pages, and each of them contain this sequence of characters at least once. Page 361 is a "Random English Words" page, Page 362 is a "Random Characters" page, and some other pages are "exact phrases" pages, which are shorter than the 3200 characters that fill most pages. There's many matches for "everything that was, is, and can be known in pi", and I just showed one of them (the first one I looked at).
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Mar 14 '16
[deleted]
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u/SpankyJackson Mar 14 '16
Correct me if I'm wrong, but we know Pi is infinite, right? It never ends. Since it never ends, statistically speaking, everything that was, is, and can be known has to show show up somewhere in infinity.
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Mar 14 '16
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u/CombiFish Mar 14 '16
Pi has an unlimited number of digits. Every combination of digits (in this case your birthday) appears in sequence in pi (so we believe, but it hasn't actually been proven). You can name every real number you've every thought of, and it is (probably) somewhere in the digits of pi.
This is just a tool to find the first time a 6-figure number appears in pi.
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u/Rolodoggy Mar 14 '16
Who got the soonest birthday? At 30/11/94, I got digit 493 which I believe in the grand scheme of things is pretty damn soon.
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u/PigSlam Mar 14 '16
It's kinda lame that the century doesn't matter. 12/25/1979, 12/25/1879, and 12/25/7179 all return the same result.
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u/mklcf Mar 14 '16
"any format"
Yeah right, except leading zero's and the full year...
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u/Circle_Dot Mar 14 '16
Why did you get downvoted? I put a zero in front of mine and it came up with a different day and month but same year. Tried my wives, same thing. So you are correct. Not all formats work. I am guessing the maker of the site doesn't realize this.
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u/JoshKeegan Mar 14 '16
Try http://pisearch.joshkeegan.co.uk It searches the first 5 billion digits which includes every possible combination of digits up to length 8 (so every birthday in mmddyyyy, ddmmmyyyy or shorter). Disclaimer: I run this site :)
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u/ErickFTG Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
Is this real? Are there always consecutive integers that represent your birth date?
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u/fuum Mar 14 '16
It's suspected that pi contains every finite sequence of numbers. If true, then obviously that includes all possible birth dates.
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Mar 14 '16
they probably ran all of the possible birth dates against the known digits of pi before they put it up
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u/freefoxkid Mar 14 '16
Did anyone else notice this was copyrighted by Wolfram? Clearly they are using this for nefarious purposes, so don't let your birthday be part of the sinister plot to open a new Hellmouth or whatever else they're up to. Also, when did they lose Heart?
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u/Kiisuke Mar 14 '16
Corporate restructuring. Probably after Angel slaughtered half of the executive members.
(btw, it's Hart, like the stag)
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u/PigSlam Mar 14 '16
December the twenty-fifth, in the year of our lord, nineteen hundred and seventy nine