Pi

[Lord Cohliani]

What I don't get is this: If Pi goes on forever , there must be some point where we don't know any further right? I mean there isn't any computer that can hold infinite information so our knowledge of Pi must end at some point right? And if our knowledge of Pi ends at some point then when we invent a computer that can hold more of Pi inside it's memory, we wont know what the next number is because it is impossible to calculate what it will be...

If that is so, then does "Infinity" even exist? Can something really go on forever? Is this even possible? Can space endlessly stretch? Can Pi keep going?





Is "Infinity" even real?

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Pi

Well, since Pi is the ratio of any circle's circumference to it's diameter, it's not impossible to eternally calculate Pi. We can keep going. since numbers don't normally take up much memory in a computer, it wouldn't be too hard to store a ton of digits of pi on a computer.

On the note of "Does infinity even exist,": Infinity is a representation of the fact that there is no final number. We can go on making more and more numbers, adding more and more digits, to hit a billion digits if we have to. The point is, whatever number we come up with will always have one that's higher than it.

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Pi

There's also an infinite amount of numbers between any two numbers. For instance, there are infinite numbers between 1 and 2, also between 1 and 1.1, or whatever else you want to use.

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Pi

There's also an infinite amount of numbers between any two numbers. For instance, there are infinite numbers between 1 and 2, also between 1 and 1.1, or whatever else you want to use.

That too.

[Lord Cohliani]

Re: Pi

Yes I know it doesn't take up much space on a computer to store numbers but at some point there's no more memory left!

I do see all of your guys points though and I agree that infinity is real. It's just such a complicated concept so I thought that I would start a discussion about it...

You can change the topic name to "Infinity" if you would like...

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Pi

No we can't. But you can.

[JPS]

Re: Pi

From its wiki article

While the value of pi has been computed to more than a trillion (10^12) digits, elementary applications, such as calculating the circumference of a circle, will rarely require more than a dozen decimal places. For example, a value truncated to 11 decimal places is accurate enough to calculate the circumference of the earth with a precision of a millimeter, and one truncated to 39 decimal places is sufficient to compute the circumference of any circle that fits in the observable universe to a precision comparable to the size of a hydrogen atom.

π itself has an infinite decimal expansion; because π is an irrational number, its decimal expansion never ends and does not repeat. This infinite sequence of digits has fascinated mathematicians and laymen alike, and much effort over the last few centuries has been put into computing more digits and investigating the number's properties. Despite much analytical work, and supercomputer calculations that have determined over 1 trillion digits of π, no simple pattern in the digits has ever been found. Digits of π are available on many web pages, and there is software for calculating π to billions of digits on any personal computer.

[Lord Cohliani]

Re: Pi

I guess you can Calculate the next digit in pi... I never knew that... I wonder how they do it...

[Gustaff 13]

Re: Pi



A few weeks ago it was March 14th. Anyone do anything?

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Pi

I guess you can Calculate the next digit in pi... I never knew that... I wonder how they do it...

You can always figure out what the next number will be the same way you do with any long division. It's just that with pi you never get finished.

[Deeth Irteen]

Re: Pi

I'm hungry for some Pi!

[Funk]

Re: Pi

A few weeks ago it was March 14th. Anyone do anything?

yeah. my wife. she made me because it was her birthday.

[John Mora]

Re: Pi

Did you round her up? :3

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Pi

I'm hungry for some Pi!

I have never before wanted to give neg rep so bad.

[neobi]

Re: Pi

It's not that PI doesn't repeat, it's just that it probably doesn't repeat until infinity. It seems contradictory but it's not, in fact can be proven.

Think of repeating with iterations and length. Now if we look at our base system (base 10), there's only a finite number of combinations or length n.
Even as n grows, the number of combinations grow exponentially but they are still finite. So no matter what, as the length of the pattern goes to infinity the combination also approaches infinity as well but at any given n, the combinations are still finite as a single integer.