158,962,555,217,826,360,000 - Numberphile

[RgrF]

or how I knew early on math wasn't for me.

The German Enigma Machine

[Ombligo]

While I was already familiar with the Enigma, it was still a fascinating clip.

[Michael]

It's very cool. Anybody find a link to the next part of the clip?

[Ken Sp.]

Very nice, thanks. I'm also looking for the second part!

[Filliam H. Muffman]

That clips was just posted on the 10th, so it might be a week or two for the next one.

[Chakravartin]

And from all of this, I conclude that the murderer is...

(Lights go out...)

[Blankity Blank]

I LOVE stuff like this.

There is a great, heartbreaking PBS(?) drama starring Derek Jacobi on the life of Alan Turing, who spearheaded the cracking of the Enigma code. Turing is considered by many to be one of the fathers of computer science, and The Turing Test is a staple in subject of artificial intelligence.

A slight digression. On a recent episode of Person of Interest, Finch went undercover as a substitute teacher. One of the tidbits he used to try to engage the class was that pi not only contains somewhere within it every number and sequence of numbers, but if one were to perform a substitution of the alphabet for the numbers -- A=1, B=2, etc. -- pi would also contain every word and combination of words somewhere within it.

Blew. My. Mind.

Anybody know if this actually true, or just a case of creative license being employed?

[Chakravartin]

Blankity Blank wrote:
Anybody know if this actually true, or just a case of creative license being employed?

How about this one: Given an infinite series of numbers that has infinite variety, when decoding it into letters as you propose, the entire 3-billion base-pair code for your DNA will be in there.

[BernDog]

Chakravartin wrote:
[quote=Blankity Blank]
Anybody know if this actually true, or just a case of creative license being employed?

How about this one: Given an infinite series of numbers that has infinite variety, when decoding it into letters as you propose, the entire 3-billion base-pair code for your DNA will be in there.
Not only that, but wouldn't it be in there an infinite number of times?

[Blankity Blank]

BernDog wrote:
[quote=Chakravartin]
[quote=Blankity Blank]
Anybody know if this actually true, or just a case of creative license being employed?

How about this one: Given an infinite series of numbers that has infinite variety, when decoding it into letters as you propose, the entire 3-billion base-pair code for your DNA will be in there.
Not only that, but wouldn't it be in there an infinite number of times? For every person ever born and ever to be born?

I feel so sorry for people who are 'afraid' of math and science.