The Gods of Pi.

The Gods of Pi

“So, what do you know about Pi?”

My mathematician friend was slowly sipping a beer and looking very smug, so I knew he was talking about the number and not the dessert. But he liked these games, so I played along.

“I like Cherry,” I said. My laptop was recording, but I could edit that out later.

He smiled, “Yes..... besides that.”

“Well, I remember that it is some sort of physical constant and it has to do with the calculation of a circle, and you can defeat evil super-computers by telling them to calculate the last significant digit. Now please tell me you didn't bring me all the way out here for you to tell me about the discovery of the 45,000^th digit of PI.”

He looked a little hurt. He pushed his long black hair out of his eyes, reached in the cooler behind him, and opened another beer. “Hell, I did that 2 years ago. You want a beer?”

“I don't usually drink when I am on a news assignment. I am on a news assignment, right?”

“Oh, yes. Yes you are. But I think you are going to want a beer. Perhaps even a whiskey”.

“Yes, because of the wonders of Pi. I think I will wait until happy hour.” I was getting a little irritated. I have fallen for his little jokes before and though I try to be a good sport about it, he had had me drive for over 4 hours in the middle of a Oregon winter to get to Prineville, of all places, for this interview. My editors at NPR would not be happy for the gas charges if all I got was another 'math geek' piece.

“The wonders of Pi. Yes. Let me tell you about them. Pi is the ratio between the circumference of a circle and it's radius. It is also descriptive of anything cyclic. Springs, electricity, waves, orbits, most all scientific math. It really is a universal constant, embedded in our universe at the big bang. It is also irrational, which means it can't be described as ratio between any two simple integers.”

“But you said it was the ratio between circumference and radius”

He waived that away. Literally, he waived his hand, caught the thought, and threw it behind him, “You will find that one of those numbers can't be an integer. Anyway, it is irrational, non-repeating, and infinite. That is the thing. Non-repeating and infinite. Infinite.

“You said that”.

“I want you to get a feel for infinite and non-repeating. It means that inside of Pi, you can find any finite length number.”

“Any finite length number? What, like my phone number?”

“Like your phone number. Like everybody's phone number. Everybody's phone number, In order. With the ASCII encoding of their name and favorite ice-cream flavor right behind it. And so on. ALL FINITE NUMBERS in all sequences.”

I thought about that for a second. More dead air to edit out.

“Is this like the infinite monkeys?” I asked him.

He sat up so fast he spilled part of his beer, “Exactly!!” he yelled, and slammed his fist on the arm of his lazy-boy. “Exactly like that. The works of Shakespeare !! The Works of Aristotle !! The lost books of the library at Alexandria !!”

“But..... But.... isn't calculating infinite digits sort of.... hard? Isn't that what drives the Evil Super Computer crazy?”

He leaned back on his chair and started eyeing me carefully over his beer can. “You aren't as dumb as I thought you were.” he said.

Dammit. So much editing. I just nodded.

“That is why were are in Prineville. “ he said. “You know what is in Prineville?”

“Besides us?... A big lake?”

“Yes, and the worlds second largest super-computer farm. Facebook's pride and joy. I have been sort of ….. borrowing …. its unused cycles to run my latest algorithm for Pi calculation. It has been very successful.”

“Borrowing. Ok. And you found something....... What did you find? 'Romeo Romeo where for art thou?' ”

“No.... no..... you sure you don't want a beer?” He tossed his most recent empty in a large stack I now saw was in the corner and he pulled another out of the cooler.

I waved it away and he popped it open and took a big swig.

“I had all these numbers. I was looking for patterns. Just for fun, you understand. Then, one night, well, I may have gotten a little drunk...”

I may have sniggered a little, because he glared at me.

“A LITTLE drunk. Anyway, I thought it would be cool to look for a more complex pattern. I thought, gee, wouldn't it be neat if I could find a picture of some sort. Maybe a couple of pictures. So I ran my extensive data through a search for JPEG files.”

“And you found one? God please don't tell me you found an all blue frame of jpeg.”

“No, I didn't find a Jpeg. I found an Mpeg.”

“Mpeg. You mean a movie?”

“A movie.”

“A couple of frames?”

“5 minutes...... with Sound....... HD”

“Oh don't give me that kind of bull-sh......”

“Let's watch it,” he interrupted.

He pointed a remote at the wide screen on the wall behind me. I spun around just as the video started.

A man. A oldish white man. Distinguished looking with white wild hair and white beard. Deep blue eyes and just radiating a look of power and authority. He was wearing what looked like to be a toga, also very white. After a few seconds he began to speak. In English. His voice was deep and melodious but still carried that very real feeling of strength.

He said, “Greetings. I see you have finally solved the mysteries of the Universe. Good for you. I am planting this video in the main physical constant of the universe just so you will know that I, the maker of the universe, do truly exist and do know everything and am, indeed, worthy of your worship and praise. I am watching you now. I do know what you are doing. So I suggest you get on your knees and start with the praying. I will sit here and watch you pray for the next 3 minutes. Remember, I love you and only want what is good for you, as long as you worship me ceaselessly. Now... Get to it.”

With that, this guy crossed his arms and just stood there, glaring.

My friend hit another button and stopped the video. “It just goes on like that for 3 minutes and ends” he said.

I chuckled a little. “I see,” said I. “You searched through Pi and you found a video of a white male god, speaking English for gods sake...... well, for fucks sake.... speaking English... in modern dialect? What the hell? You expect me to believe this? You expect my editor to fall for this? What, is the sequence so deep in Pi that no-one can really find it and you can push this off on the world?”

He lowered his head a bit. He had sat forward in his chair to watch the video and now he stared at the REI wool socks on his feet. “No, the sequence starts at binary digit 6 thousand. Just far enough in that you probably wouldn't find it without a computer. Once you know what to look for it is easy to access. Really easy. Pretty much anyone with a decent ibook could isolate it in a couple of years. You got yourself a few thousand server class computers and you can reproduce this work in an afternoon.”

“So......in other words..... Yes, you want me to believe it isn't a fake.”

“Doesn't matter if you believe or not. I am publishing my findings tomorrow morning via internet and by tomorrow evening there will be enough of my enemies trying to show what an ass I am that they will have found and verified this discovery.”

“really?”

“Really. Listen, Jim, I know I have fucked with you a little in the past. But never over my own work. Never about stuff that would hurt my career..... or yours.”

He was right about that. His jests had always been just between us. Funny, but not harmful. This sort of shit would ruin me if I took it to my editor.

“My editor will never run it. Hell, I still think this is someone fucking with YOU. Somebody who caught you 'borrowing' the Facebook array.”

“Yes. I checked that. I re-ran on some private hardware. Like I said, Once you know what you are looking for, it is easy to find.”.

“But....” I still wasn't believing. “But you must know that I can't run with this. It is just NOT BELIEVABLE.”.

“Yes. I know. I didn't really expect you to believe me.”

“Then why did you call me all the way out here. Why not just print your results and let things fall as they may”.

“Pick a number and a color.”

“What?”

“Any number and any color. Don't tell me what they are. Just pick them. In your mind.”

So. Ok. I pick 37 and blue. No, that is too easy. I pick 375537 and the color black. He isn't going to mind game scam me.

He watches me for a second and then Nods. “Ok, here is the thing. There are other irrational universal constants out there. One of them is e. Here is what I got when I went looking in e.”

Once again he hit the remote.

The TV lit up with a green sunny back ground. Some tropical paradise. In the distance was a person. The screen zoomed in to a gorgeous black woman of medium age. He teeth were very white. Her eyes were very brown. Her skin was perfect. I fell in love with her instantly. She smiled at me. She spoke. Her voice was music. “Hello, Jim. You color was black and your number was 375537. Personally, I liked 37 and blue more. First, I love you too. Second, don't pay any attention to that old sexist bastard in Pi. He is just a mean spirited useless sack of shit and you certainly shouldn't be worshipping him. He may have snuck that hate mail into Pi but I guarantee you that the rest of the universe is without his influence. Now, call your sister and tell her she is pregnant and then get these messages onto the Radio for me. Have a nice life”

And it went blank. I blinked. My friend handed me a phone.

I called my sister. She had just finished the preg test.

After the call I sat back in my chair and looked at my friend. “Can I have that beer now?”