3.14159 … Infinity (1/10/15)

Pi is an infinitely long non-repeating series if digits. Any string of digits you can conceive is found somewhere in the digits of pi. Express your birthday as digits, and you can find it in pi. Try it at http://www.angio.net/pi

Even more remarkable, if you designate all the keyboard characters as numbers (similar to what a computer does), you can find any combination of them in a series in pi. Not only is your birth date in pi, so is “Happy Birthday!” Because pi is an infinite series, every book that has ever been written is a string of digits somewhere in pi. So is every book that will ever be written. So is the conversation you had yesterday. So is the conversation you wish you had yesterday. The only trouble is that you have to find them among all the seemingly meaningless strings of digits. Some of those seemingly meaningless strings may actually be messages in a yet undiscovered language. This whole pi thing is either very profound or very weird.

Thanks to my friend Jim for telling me about the short story “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges. This library is like a physical expression of the infinite letters of pi. Go to

http://people.math.sfu.ca/~van/teaching/Math-303/Fall14/Borges_LibraryofBabel.pdf

Next week a few words about the center of our life.  Jesus asks an important question of the mouse and the disciples, and we learn prayers of compassion and gratitude.