

Converting Pi to binary: Don't do it! - nickb
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.42.html#subj5

======
zyroth
Actually it is not guaranteed that every string of bits will at some point be
a substring of pi. Bad joke, since wrong.

~~~
mojuba
Can you generate an infinite string of bits that does _not_ contain a given
finite string?

Edit: no periods in the infinite string, of course

~~~
rms
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number#Properties_and_ex...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number#Properties_and_examples)

Sure... the infinite string of 1s, or the infinite string of 0s, or the
infinite string of 0s and 1s that is made up of only decimal 3s and 7s. There
are an uncountably many number of non-normal real numbers like this, even
though the infinite amount of normal real numbers is bigger.

~~~
zyroth
> There are an uncountably many number of non-normal real numbers like this,
> even though the infinite amount of normal real numbers is bigger.

How sure are you with that one? Mind to supply a proof?

~~~
rms
I have no proofs; I don't think very many proofs exist with regards to this
topic.

From what I've been able to gather, I think the cardinality of the normal and
non-normal numbers are the same, even though the non-normal numbers are
measurably greater because of probability distributions. This is a paradox
that I don't really understand.
[http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4270](http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4270)

~~~
zyroth
Anything related to the concept of infinity tends to be hardly understandable
in an "emotional" or "intuitive" way. We can just apply the rules of logic and
accept.

------
axod
Similarly, surely this could land you in big trouble:

dd if=/dev/urandom of=testfile bs=1024 count=1024

You could end up with a copyrighted mp3 file, some trade secrets, various
passwords, credit card numbers, etc

And another point... "Converting PI to binary"

What?? What base is PI in to start with? Surely the title should be
"Calculating PI and storing as binary" or similar.

