NP Alabama Pi & approx. 3.14 questions

[desert search for techno allah]

"rwan" writes:
>So what IS the point, if any? How is pi NUMERICALLY defined - that certainly
>having been quite the question all along - unless all of its digits are
>known? What - or who - is a nitpick and who are you?

   Main Entry: nit·pick
   Pronunciation: 'nit-"pik
   Function: verb
   Etymology: back-formation from nit-picking
   Date: 1966
   intransitive senses : to engage in nit-picking
   transitive senses : to criticize by nit-picking
   - nitpick noun
   - nit·pick·er noun
   - nit·picky /-"pi-kE/ adjective

There's a difference between knowing what all the digits are,
and defining a number. Take for example the number below:

	0.101100111000111100001111100000111111...

which goes on as indicated. Offhand I don't know if there's a nice
little equation to which this number is a solution, or anything
like that, but I'll bet you can give a short description of how
to obtain arbitrarily many digits of this number (since it's
irrational, you can't ever write the whole number out, so like
pi, the best you can do is write out arbitrarily many digits).
In one sense, this is the best you can do - it's "defined."



Josh     <--- who I am

-- 
josh blog: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/blog/
      tdr: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/tdr/