Re: Had an idea - looking for a math buff to tell me if it's possible?with today's technology.

[Doug Barton <dougb () dougbarton us>]

On 5/20/2011 12:44 PM, Ken Chase wrote:
> On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 09:34:59AM -1000, Paul Graydon said:
> > Not quite sure I follow that. "Start at position xyz, carry on for 10000
> > bits" shouldn't be as long as telling it all 10000 bits?
>
> what position # do you think your exact 10000 bits will appear at?
>
> (infact, mathies, whats the probability density function for
> string of digits length N appearing in pi's digits per M digits?)
>
> find M/N and there's your answer - might well be cheaper to
> express the 10000 bits themselves, than a 100,000 bit long position #
> in pi.

Blah. I seriously hate extending this silliness but I can't resist 
pointing out something that might be useful to someone to solve a real 
problem someday.

Who in their right mind would represent a string of 10**3000 numbers as 
the full string in what's supposed to be a compression algorithm? And 
yes, I'm pretty sure I just suggested the proper solution, as did the 
reference to a 255 bit array, but just in case ...

Assume that your string starts at precisely digit number 18,000,000. 
Advance to position 2**24, advance 1,222,784 digits further, begin 
recording. Obviously better/more interesting models could be developed 
by someone who actually cared. :)


Doug (you're welcome)

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