http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=502410


in reply to Re^3: Latent Japh
in thread Latent Japh

Google found me a website that allows people to search the first 200 million digits of PI for any sequence of digits (up to 120 digits). If you convert the phrase, "Just another Perl hacker,\n" to its ordinal values you get "74117115116329711011111610410111432801011141083210497991071011144410 " (all delimiters have been removed). Searching for that string of digits in the first 200 million digits of PI comes back with no matches.

The same website also shows a breakdown of probability of finding digit strings of certain lengths:

DigitsProbability
1-5100%
6Nearly 100%
799.995%
863%
99.5%
100.995%
110.09995%

The ASCII ordinal value string for "Just another Perl hacker,\n" is 68 digits long. I don't remember from stats classes how to predict the probability of finding a 68 digit sequence in a "random" sequence of 200 million digits, but I know the probability is extremely low. And as the search results show, "Just another Perl hacker,\n" isn't found in the first 200 million digits of PI.

As a matter of fact, the ordinal values of the ascii string "Just" also do NOT appear within the first 200 million digits of PI. And that's only an eleven digit pattern! A given 68 digit pattern might not even show up in the first 200 billion digits of PI. ...but then again it might. ;)


Dave

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Re^5: Latent Japh
by cwry (Monk) on Oct 24, 2005 at 08:40 UTC
    JAPH appears, though: The string 74658072 was found at position 83,607,151 counting from the first digit after the decimal point. The 3. is not counted.
      I Just thought I'd add to this. Chris, you're an utter utter bastard.