Pi used as a computer program?

If Pi is unlimited could you use it as a base for building a computer program that would have an infinite capacity to store data? Searching through the data base utilizing divisions of pi to find what you want?

 

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This is the old monkeys with typewriters scenario rewritten.

If you take the digits 01 to 26, and replace them with the letters a to z, then use this code for the digits of pi, eventually you will find the complete works of Shakespeare, word for word. You will also find millions of plays he never wrote, but in his style and just as good.

 

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Well, that made even less sense than the question did...

 

no.
there are 2 methods to storing data in computers.
one is with the registers and memory locations, these are a set length and is determined at the time of manufacture. the largest number that can be stored is 2 raised to the power of the number of data lines. for example, if your machine has an 8 bit data bus then the largest number can be 2 raised to the power of 8 or 256. how many of these numbers is determined by the number of address lines and is found just like in the above example.
you can increase the magnitude of numbers only at the cost of software overhead and CPU time, you cannot increase the CPU storage capacity without external mass storage (tape, disk, drum ).

 

Pi is definitely not random, the numbers are the same every time, the only difference is the length of decimal placing that people are willing to handle. (When decimalized)

If anything Pi is a Constant, it's just the limitations in our capacity to output it that might make it appear a different value.

 

@Fraggle
I didn't say that it was completely random.
But the frequency of each digit is close to random, and there is no recurring pattern.
http://www.eveandersson.com/pi/precalculated-frequencies

So, if you search through it for long enough, you will find any sequence of digits that you are looking for. Including the coded works of Shakespeare. Plus Romeo and Julian, set in a sandwich bar on the Costa del Sol, his brilliant unwritten gay play.

 

Sorry Gmilam, I was trying to express it succinctly. I may not have put the point across very well.

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Take the sonnet beginning "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day"
Let's look in pi just for the first word, "shall".
If we use the numbers 01 to 26 to represent the letters a to z, where a=01, b=02 and so on, then "shall" will be represented by 19, 08, 01, 12, 12 or 1908011212.

If you go through the digits of pi for long enough, you will find those digits in that order. The same will happen for any series of digits, no matter how long.

Eventually, you will find the whole works of Shakespeare encoded.

 

I get your point. Not sure I agree with it. But it is interesting...

As a programmer, I think your code is very poorly defined. Is 25 BE or Y?

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This thread got totally off point. I am not a computer person nor a programmer and it was just a random though brought about by something I had seen with the change from .com to a site that had .fm which was about them running out of .com's or something like that. Though the direction this went was interesting I find no relevance in it any more. Thank you.

 

What is is you want to say then?

How could you use pi as a computer program?
It doesn't mean anything except in relation to the area of a circle, capacity of a sphere etc.

 

No I don't think so. BE would be 0205, Y is 25.
Get with the code man!
How else are you going to read Shakespeare's latest plays?

 

Er, you express Pi in Base26 of course,.... the same rules apply to Pi in every base. So 25 = Z.

 

Whatever.
But we have been rightly admonished, and now microtubed will bring us back to the subject.

 

Ok so i was just wondering there is computer languages right. I was just wondering if you could use decimals of pi to reference a data base like ( card cataloging ) you would never run out of listing capacity. and yes i understand that the holding capacity is restrained by how big your physical memory blocks are.

 

I was trying to get with the code... But then I didn't know what to do with 00 and 27 through 99...

Phlogistician's right - you'd have to express pi in base 26 if you plan on using the English alphabet.

 

there are a number of search methods that can be used to search extremely large databases quickly.
one of the simplest is the binary search.
using this method a computer can find any number you choose from 0 to 16535 in 16 tries or less.
it can find any number you choose from 0 to 18,000 quadrillion in 64 tries or less.

 

in straight binary 4 bits represents one hex digit, 0 through 15
in binary coded decimal the entire 4 bits cannot be used, only the digits 0 through 9. when the CPU encounters such a BCD digit all numbers above 9 are simply ignored.
maybe you can do something similar.

 

It's a simple substitution code.
It isn't a base at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_cipher

One thing I wonder, is whether a numerical reference to a place where a specific string of digits begins, would be shorter than the string of digits itself.
Would the reference to the place where the whole works of Shakespeare begins be shorter than the whole works of Shakespeare.