Pi in Binary
Take any circle, measure the length of its circumference then measure the length of its diameter and divide the two numbers. You get pi, probably the most famous number in all of mathematics and known for thousands of years.
pi=circumference/diameter
pi=3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510..
The decimal places go on forever and appear to be random.
But this is just one representation pi, it's pi represented in base 10.
We can represent numbers in any base we please. In base 10 we have 10 symbols 0,1,2,3,...9 and in base n we have n symbols 0,1,2,3,...,(n-1)
The simplest base is base 2, because in that base we have only two symbols 0,1
Base 2 is also call "binary" and writing pi in binary makes it look like computer data and even more mysterious. Here's pi in binary..
pi=11.00100100 00111111 01101010 10001000 10000101 10100011 00001000 11010011..
What is this data stream encoding? Nobody knows.
Content written and posted by Ken Abbott abbottsystems@gmail.com