Re: Patterns in pi, copyright law, and philosophy
- From: Tim Smith <reply_in_group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:07:46 -0800
In article
<17c56c25-c09b-4064-8fde-4aaa82c3e1a1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
shepherdmoon@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
The best thing about the link is the comments section, which has some
fascinating back-and-forth discussion about the following topics:
1. Whether the offset of a string found in pi can be used as a form on
compression.
No. Suppose you have a string of digits, S, which, interpreted as a
number, is N. The offset to the first occurrence of that string will be
approximately N. Thus, you'll about S digits to represent the offset.
2. Whether the fact that a given string is found in pi negates
copyright law.
No. See 17 USC 102(a).
3. Whether pi itself can appear "in" pi.
No. The only numbers that can appear "in" themselves are rational
numbers. Pi is irrational.
4. (my own musings, not necessarily in the comments): What are the
implications for ideas of free will and creativity if it can be
demonstrated that any human writing, which can be defined as a finite
string of encoded numbers, already exists in pi?
None.
--
--Tim Smith
.
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- Patterns in pi, copyright law, and philosophy
- From: shepherdmoon
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