# "Messages" (not really) in Pi **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 7, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073 "2020-01-07T16:04:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/1 "2020-01-07T16:04:53Z")
Since Pi is believed to be [normal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number) in the sense that any numerical sequence in it’s decimal expansion should appear randomly, and because we currently know the decimal expansion of Pi to [31 trillion digits](https://www.npr.org/2019/03/14/703566696/the-woman-who-calculated-31-trillion-digits-of-pi), then given some suitable scheme for translating digits into letters are there any known short phrases appearing in Pi? Something like “Hello John” for example? ETA: especially if you expressed Pi in base-26 perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/2 "2020-01-07T16:16:29Z")
If you don’t have the hardware to work it out in base 26, you may as well make up any scheme you want. For instance, A = 01, B = 02, … Or 7-bit ASCII for the binary expansion of pi… ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/3 "2020-01-07T16:54:38Z")
Instead of using base-26, why not just treat the bits of pi as an arithmetic code, and “decrypt” that “compressed file” using the trigraph statistics of King James’ Bible. I happen to have code that does just that right here, next to my fingertips. Doing this with the first million bits of pi I get about 1000 lines of text, of which this excerpt is typical: > [@](#): > > And of thad of Chrice usecall gue us the hiss of horth forderediefoustionem, and sawat yessignencaught haverhictes the of hichil praid in have and I proked of hill where prok whis by sel? > They sai had fie carrie. > Let. > Take for fore day soer, alkin of Judgmeavousennem thater the th saysel, shalson, and worts, and thy fer the videadefor led the mand ame shad alt le and his fiesem, feadfusetur. > And th. > But wins; and she shall of tronen Chamoss desent theakentrene. a share bres piess lias shall to and th, to mi the for cob shalessight torry them maken aboly, shat mand set, a weep; and hou a hall predge, faticesin, > Now th brobled up itiot you, thold you haitemplaw the the for thre asacee holl yetwerathallot thearprecas and As Chre unt is he sh andred eacle, angs upok yet not: a catin thought and gragat thwithall leterlwainter. > And the peof the up, ass fece, an: facconeird, a lour sto hill le, all mort I for the the fight, ings? > Glom for and the the don, fat mannoctur hem, the sin scat hit, ace precas hat in therefervand the his is on oult domid th to yout: Arniquill, sids herrhathady I tried seeding with Shakespeare’s Complete Works rather than the King James Bible. > [@](#): > > HELLO. I kine, mus, bee her of en hat whe deard, Goneve ch > Blois wee, > To heir fuls! > > DUKESANIUS. BERCUS. Know desh. My ger > You femed entholly mad goomall dambid er forne of yok’s nother’d wheyebon is vionserts hips he gre ainsuare. FORKS a comed hill! > Whouglosearce. > WOR DOLLEN. But mus a rount ou wing him; de taing jus not, > SIONGHT Dolouch, > Kint. Sext day hou my to I dis hime swer hose homp itining talf, bette theemse ourthat cou wel’d ren dieve gre uple-bidieclad, aceak thick ownemas her, > Bes his lor cre olp > OT. Nay! > dem doth what suall, > The anque; > Ent > By CON Impreatting, > FALECOSALSECOMENALECOPIDED SUCHATHAL Uniours > SCESSER. I hour unt thos, turs I areard I’llenzo, foll feat lutwouldrawflorie on ind > your gray, son throw your th theed thy cant. CON. ARLA st alou agendesaid romastarebes wit thypt ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/4 "2020-01-07T16:58:48Z")
I just googled \ and the [first hit](http://www.cadaeic.net/picode.htm) lists some of the first few messages, with a lot of info on the supporting mathematics and other observations. Note though that they don’t seem to have noticed that the very first 5 characters after the decimal place are “Dr SQL”…I googled \*that \*and incredibly, there is no product yet so named… ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/5 "2020-01-07T17:58:48Z")
If you use A=01, B=02, … Z=26 and " "=00 then John (10150814) appears at digit 95,782,881 Hello (0805121215) sadly does not appear in the first 100 million digits. ---
**Author:** ![Bert\_Nobbins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@Bert\_Nobbins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bert_Nobbins)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/6 "2020-01-07T19:20:40Z")
I’ve often wondered what sort of message one might hope for. I envisage something like: “Hello! You got here at last! There now follow instructions on how to make an anti-gravity machine…” Of course the fact it was in English might be even more notable. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/7 "2020-01-07T19:34:26Z")
> [@Bert\_Nobbins](#): > > Of course the fact it was in English might be even more notable. I was thinking Latin, or Aramaic, or some cro-magon language. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/8 "2020-01-07T19:38:04Z")
I looked out to a billion digits. Hello (0805121215) appears at position 390,990,395. John (10150814) appears 12 times in the first billion digits. God (071504) first appears at 386,707, then at 396,745, 1,222,168, 1,735,723, etc. I count 1007 occurrences of God in the first billion digits. That guy is always scribbling his name on everything. In fact, YHVH (25082208) occurs 8 times too. And Allah (0112120108) appears once at 596,539,269. Of the people posting in this thread, only DPRK appears, at positions 16,285,229 and 93,869,933. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/9 "2020-01-07T21:46:56Z")
What about the other 8,999,999,997 names? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/10 "2020-01-07T21:57:58Z")
From Post #3 above: > [@](#): > > And of thad of Chrice usecall gue us the hiss of horth forderediefoustionem, and sawat yessignencaught haverhictes the of hichil praid in have and I proked of hill where prok whis by sel? > They sai had fie carrie. > Let. > Take for fore day soer, alkin of Judgmeavousennem thater the th saysel, shalson, and worts, and thy fer the videadefor led the mand ame shad alt le and his fiesem, feadfusetur. > And th. > But wins; and she shall of tronen Chamoss desent theakentrene. a share bres piess lias shall to and th, to mi the for cob shalessight torry them maken aboly, shat mand set, a weep; and hou a hall predge, faticesin, > Now th brobled up itiot you, thold you haitemplaw the the for thre asacee holl yetwerathallot thearprecas and As Chre unt is he sh andred eacle, angs upok yet not: a catin thought and gragat thwithall leterlwainter. > And the peof the up, ass fece, an: facconeird, a lour sto hill le, all mort I for the the fight, ings? > Glom for and the the don, fat mannoctur hem, the sin scat hit, ace precas hat in therefervand the his is on oult domid th to yout: Arniquill, sids herrhathady So that’s straight-up Chaucer! I’m expecting “So long and thanks for all the fish.” ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/11 "2020-01-07T22:20:06Z")
About twenty years ago, there was an [Internet program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem#Random_document_generation) that you could run to simulate a large number of monkeys typing randomly to see if any random string corresponded with text from Shakespeare’s plays. After a ridiculous amount of simulated time (billions of years) passed, the best result was about 24 characters. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/12 "2020-01-08T02:19:19Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > About twenty years ago, there was an [Internet program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem#Random_document_generation) that you could run to simulate a large number of monkeys typing randomly to see if any random string corresponded with text from Shakespeare’s plays. After a ridiculous amount of simulated time (billions of years) passed, the best result was about 24 characters. Monkeys had a damn union. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/13 "2020-01-08T11:06:34Z")
The OP is a major plot point in the novel _Contact_ by Carl Sagan. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/14 "2020-01-08T14:26:28Z")
Of course, with a ‘suitable’ coding scheme, you can get whatever result you want. Here, I’m going to use a scheme where I pick 1,000 common English words (and given names) and assign each one a three-decimal-digit number from 000 to 999. I just made my list and it turns out “Hello” ends up as 314, and 151 encodes to John. Mathematically, this is no more arbitrary than 01=“a”, etc. So, look, we can find “Hello John” immediately! How amazing!. Unless you think we should only start after the decimal point. In my system 141 is the word “random” and 519 decodes to “noise”, so we get quite a different result. Hmm But even though it’s just arbitrary, just for fun I’d still like someone to do some emoji-result decoding of Pi’s digits. Yes, the OP specifically said ‘letters’, not word-by-word, but it’s a lot easier to make the point this way. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/15 "2020-01-08T14:34:33Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > Hello (0805121215) sadly does not appear in the first 100 million digits. That’s because “Pi is shy”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/16 "2020-01-08T15:21:28Z")
And **septimus** ’s encoding scheme is designed to make it easy to get common English words, so it’s no surprise that most of it looks mostly like English words. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/17 "2020-01-08T15:44:03Z")
One interesting experiment would convert the digits of Pi to letters in a way that was statistically consistent with normal language. Just writing Pi in base 26 means all the letters should come up about equally, but that’s not typical. In typical texts, certain letters come up more often than most. According to [this table](https://www.lexico.com/explore/which-letters-are-used-most), E is 11.2%, A is 8.5%, R is 7.6%… For example, write Pi in base 1000. Then 112 of the digits would be assigned to E, 85 digits would be assigned to A, 76 digits assigned to R, and so on. This should produce text that was much more likely to correspond to actual words and phrases. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/18 "2020-01-08T21:23:52Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > One interesting experiment would convert the digits of Pi to letters in a way that was statistically consistent with normal language. Just writing Pi in base 26 means all the letters should come up about equally, but that’s not typical. In typical texts, certain letters come up more often than most. According to [this table](https://www.lexico.com/explore/which-letters-are-used-most), E is 11.2%, A is 8.5%, R is 7.6%… For example, write Pi in base 1000. Then 112 of the digits would be assigned to E, 85 digits would be assigned to A, 76 digits assigned to R, and so on. This should produce text that was much more likely to correspond to actual words and phrases. Isn’t this kinda-sorta what **septimus** is doing in Post #3, and which **Chronos** notes in the post just above? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/19 "2020-01-08T21:27:23Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > using the trigraph statistics of King James’ Bible. I happen to have code that does just that right here, next to my fingertips. Can you explain all of that please? What are trigraphs, what does it mean to have them on a King James Bible, why that book and not some other book, and why do you have this at all? ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073/20 "2020-01-08T21:35:12Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Isn’t this kinda-sorta what **septimus** is doing in Post #3, and which **Chronos** notes in the post just above? Maybe. I suppose it could be. I guess I didn’t understand what was meant when septimus said “Instead of using base-26, why not just treat the bits of pi as an arithmetic code, and “decrypt” that “compressed file” using the trigraph statistics of King James’ Bible” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/messages-not-really-in-pi/846073.md?page=2)