Wednesday, March 21, 2007

NOW YOU TOO CAN BE AN UBERNERD!!!

Have you ever felt like less of a person because you never memorised any transcendental numbers (e.g. Pi [3.15149] or Euler's constant [2.71828]) beyond six digits?

Well, worry no more! It turns out that there's a transcendental number we can all memorise! It's the Liouville constant, which is defined as...

\sum_{k=1}^\infty 10^{-k!} = 0.110001000000000000000001000\ldots

Basically, it's the summation of 10^-1 factorial + 10^-2 factorial + 10^-3 factorial + etc....

So now it's easy to recite a transcendental number to the first 100 digits! Just begin with "Zero point" and remember to say "one" the first, second, 6th and 24th times and zero all the other times all the way to a hundred (if you're going for a thousand places, remember to say "one" at the 120th and 720th places too).

Have a ball! Show off to your friends! It's better than The Song That Never Ends!

(This is a belated entry for Pi day, March 14th)

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