this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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How about ANY FINITE SEQUENCE AT ALL?

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[–] [email protected] 155 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

It's almost sure to be the case, but nobody has managed to prove it yet.

Simply being infinite and non-repeating doesn't guarantee that all finite sequences will appear. For example, you could have an infinite non-repeating number that doesn't have any 9s in it. But, as far as numbers go, exceptions like that are very rare, and in almost all (infinite, non-repeating) numbers you'll have all finite sequences appearing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Exceptions are infinite. Is that rare?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (9 children)

Rare in this context is a question of density. There are infinitely many integers within the real numbers, for example, but there are far more non-integers than integers. So integers are more rare within the real.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 days ago (7 children)

This is what allows pifs to work!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Thats very cool. It brings to mind some sort of espionage where spies are exchanging massive messages contained in 2 numbers. The index and the Metadata length. All the other spy has to do is pass it though pifs to decode. Maybe adding some salt as well to prevent someone figuring it out.

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (17 children)

No, the fact that a number is infinite and non-repeating doesn't mean that and since in order to disprove something you need only one example here it is: 0.1101001000100001000001... this is a number that goes 1 and then x times 0 with x incrementing. It is infinite and non-repeating, yet doesn't contain a single 2.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This proves that an infinite, non-repeating number needn't contain any given finite numeric sequence, but it doesn't prove that an infinite, non-repeating number can't. This is not to say that Pi does contain all finite numeric sequences, just that this statement isn't sufficient to prove it can't.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago

you are absolutely right.

it just proves that even if Pi contains all finite sequences it's not "since it oa infinite and non-repeating"

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago

That was quite an elegant proof

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 days ago (1 children)

it's actually unknown. It looks like it, but it is not proven

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Also is it even possible to prove it at all? My completely math inept brain thinks that it might be similar to the countable vs uncountable infinities thing, where even if you mapped every element of a countable infinity to one in the uncountable infinity, you could still generate more elements from the uncountable infinity. Would the same kind of logic apply to sequences in pi?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

Man, you're giving me flashbacks to real analysis. Shit is weird. Like the set of all integers is the same size as the set of all positive integers. The set of all fractions, including whole numbers, aka integers, is the same size as the set of all integers. The set of all real numbers (all numbers including factions and irrational numbers like pi) is the same size as the set of all real numbers between 0 and 1. The proofs make perfect sense, but the conclusions are maddening.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

A number for which that is true is called a normal number. It’s proven that almost all real numbers are normal, but it’s very difficult to prove that any particular number is normal. It hasn’t yet been proved that Ο€ is normal, though it’s generally assumed to be.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago

I love the idea (and it's definitely true) that there are irrational numbers which, when written in a suitable base, contain the sequence of characters, "This number is provably normal" and are simultaneously not normal.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The jury is out on whether every finite sequence of digits is contained in pi.

However, there are a multitude of real numbers that contain every finite sequence of digits when written in base 10. Here's one, which is defined by concatenating the digits of every non-negative integer in increasing order. It looks like this:

0 . 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ...
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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago

It has not been proven either way but if pi is proven to be normal then yes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

My guess would be that - depending on the number of digits you are looking for in the sequence - you could calculate the probability of finding any given group of those digits.

For example, there is a 100% probability of finding any group of two, three or four digits, but that probability decreases as you approach one hundred thousand digits.

Of course, the difficulty in proving this hypothesis rests on the computing power needed to prove it empirically and the number of digits of Pi available. That is, a million digits of Pi is a small number if you are looking for a ten thousand digit sequence

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

But surely given infinity, there is no problem finding a number of ANY length. It's there, somewhere, eventually, given that nothing repeats, the number is NORMAL, as people have said, and infinite.

The probability is 100% for any number, no matter how large, isn't it?

Smart people?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not just any all finite number sequence appear in pi

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (11 children)

no. it merely being infinitely non-repeating is insufficient to say that it contains any particular finite string.

for instance, write out pi in base 2, and reinterpret as base 10.

11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101...

it is infinitely non-repeating, but nowhere will you find a 2.

i've often heard it said that pi, in particular, does contain any finite sequence of digits, but i haven't seen a proof of that myself, and if it did exist, it would have to depend on more than its irrationality.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Isnt this a stupid example though, because obviously if you remove all penguins from the zoo, you're not going to see any penguins

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The explanation is misdirecting because yes they're removing the penguins from the zoo. But they also interpreted the question as to if the zoo had infinite non-repeating exhibits whether it would NECESSARILY contain penguins. So all they had to show was that the penguins weren't necessary.

By tying the example to pi they seemed to be trying to show something about pi. I don't think that was the intention.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

i just figured using pi was an easy way to acquire a known irrational number, not trying to make any special point about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah i got confused too and saw someone else have the same distraction.

It makes sense why you chose that.

This kind of thing messed me up so much in school πŸ˜‚

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (20 children)

Its not stupid. To disprove a claim that states "All X have Y" then you only need ONE example. So, as pick a really obvious example.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago

Yes.

And if you're thinking of a compression algorithm, nope, pigeonhole principle.

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