Tim Ikeda wrote:
> I recently made the startling discovery that when I measure the
> circumference of a circle and divide that number by twice the
> circle's radius, the value of pi appears! I've been able to confirm
> this result to three decimal places so far, using no more than a
> simple protractor and a ruler.
It goes without saying that I'm mightily impressed by all your
discoveries. I think it's even more interesting that you apparently grew
up in a culture where a great deal of progress had been made in algebra
and analysis while almost nothing had been done in geometry. I would
guess that pi had been defined by some formula such as
pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + ....
or in terms of some integral like a gamma function. The discovery that
the same number occurred in an elementary geometry problem would then
have been quite a surprise.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Dialogue"
>
>
> This isn't the only "special" number I've encountered. I once
> monitored the growth of bacterial cultures in liquid media and found
> that the rate of increase in cell counts could be mathematically
> manipulated such that the value "e" appeared (But I could only get
> about 2 significant figures in this case due to cell adaptation
> and nutrient exhaustion).
>
> Most recently, I've converted the letters in my name to ASCII values,
> added up the even positions, summed that value with the cube of the
> sum of the odd positions and found I could derive the following
> relationship:
>
> N = pi * e * K (where K is an irrational constant)
>
> Oddly enough, I can sum the odd positions, add that value to the cube
> of the sum of the even positions, and derive an almost identical
> relationship:
>
> N2 = pi * e * K2 (where K2 is also a constant, irrational value)
>
> I take this as evidence that the universe was created especially
> for me. While it's conceivable the universe was created for someone
> else with the same name, I calculated the odds of that happening
> as << 1/1E90 (after I factored in left-handedness, locations of
> birthmarks, blood type and the ability to recite Monty Python's
> "The Lumberjack Song" from memory with > 70% accuracy). Given that
> this order of magnitude is greater than the number of protons in
> the universe, this alternate option is physically impossible* and
> need not be considered further.
>
> Please rest assured that I am a benevolent "center of the universe":
> I only ask that people put in a reasonable effort not to disturb my
> free-time on weekends. I also look favorably on those who don't take
> screaming infants or misbehaving children into decent restaurants
> (e.g. anything better than the Waffle house or Perkins) and movie
> theaters showing anything but G-rated pictures.
>
> Regards,
> Tim Ikeda (tikeda@sprintmail.com)
>
> *Assuming the "multiverse" hypothesis of cosmology is incorrect.
> Actually, consideration of explanatory parsimony** conclusively
> proves the multiverse concept is impossible.
>
> ** Explanatory parsimony is a clever philosophical tool that
> permits us to completely ignore explanations that are least
> parsimonious, or that appear less parsimonious than an alternate
> explanation we may happen to favor at the time. That this tool can
> never be proven to operate properly is but a minor point. As rule
> of thumb in science, I've personally found that the most
> parsimonious explanation, "my lab partner messed up my experiment"
> is often incorrect. Instead, the second or third most parsimonious
> explanations (e.g #2 - "I screwed up" & #3 - "The results are
> actually legitimate") tend to be correct. However, this is not to
> detract from the ability to rule out the least parsimonious
> explanations like: "Hera, jealous of the god, Zeus, tinkled in
> my flask and upset the culture's nitrogen balance", which at
> best, may only have happened once with my experiments.
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