At Slate, I wrote about a pi meme that’s been going around for a few months, most recently shared by George Takei’s facebook page.
We don’t know for sure that pi contains all possible strings of decimal digits, but on a deeper level, the meme is right. And if it gets you pondering the mysteries of infinity, so much the better. You won’t be alone. The idea that monkeys sitting at a typewriter would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare has been around for decades. To continue bending your mind, I recommend these variations on the theme. Jorge Luis Borges explores the darker side of the concept in his short story The Library of Babel, and the always entertaining Vi Hart’s video for Pi Day 2012 tackles the question, “Are Shakespeare’s Plays Encoded in Pi?“
Read the full post at Slate.
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