this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/12236757

A little mathematics joke on PI day (3/14/2024)

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm not 100% sure what the last digit of pi is, but I've narrowed it down to 10 numbers.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

If you express pi in binary you can narrow it down to just two!

[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Arguably, 0 can't be the last digit since you can leave it out without changing the value of a number. So the last digit is 1.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

meaning it's an even number

[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I'd guess that the last digit is 2. Please feel free to prove me wrong

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago

Your guess is "the last digit is 2". This necessarily implies that your full guess is: "there exists a last digit, and that last digit is 2". I'll happily prove that wrong :)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

PI does get irrational sometimes. It do be what it is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Same here. I'm not always rational myself. I don't have the moral high ground to judge π in any meaningful way

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I would bet my left achilles tendon that its a 9. The vibe it gives off is odd number-ish

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

I like symmetry, so I'm hoping it's a 3

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The last digit of pi is clearly the i, which would be equivalent to 19 after converting to base 10.

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

How is i equivalent to 19? It's that a typo and you mean 9?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

"i" should be 18 if we're extending hexadecimal to enneadecimal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah, i get that pi is a very od number and two is like the most even number

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

Don't do it, buddy! They may look like the last digits of Pi because of all those zeroes that follow, but it's just a really long string of zeroes that starts up with random digits again after a while!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

What's wrong with me, why am I getting so annoyed that the other comments are acting like there's actually a chance it's right? Are they just being funny, or do they actually think the question "what's the last digit of pi" makes sense? Even if they're wrong, why should I care?!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

They're just being silly, man. That's literally the joke.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What is wrong with you is that you're not realizing that your niche knowledge is not common knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's not common knowledge that the digits of pi go on forever?

(I think I'm asking this as a rhetorical question but I suppose I have to upgrade it to a genuine question)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

It's common knowledge, yes, but most people don't care about differentiating between a humongously large number we are not capable of calculating vs an infinite number that can never be calculated even if we have a machine powerful enough to do it, because it's not relevant to pretty much any day to day life.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

iirc it can potentially make sense in the event that our universe turns out to be simulated and subject to floating point errors.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Nah, pi arises purely from math, it doesn't depend on the universe. The number we call pi would still be an irrational number even if the universe is a simulation that uses a rational approximation of pi.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Happy Pi Day! Celebrate Circularity! Ride Bikes! Share Spherical Sonnets! Get around to doing things! Eat Round Food! 🍕🥧🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

There’s a 1 in 10 chance he’s right but also impossible to prove

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago