Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OT Best way to compress files with digits
Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 19:55:54
Message-Id: 54568C33.7070105@gmail.com
In Reply to: [gentoo-user] Re: OT Best way to compress files with digits by David W Noon
1 On 01/11/2014 23:56, David W Noon wrote:
2 >> The sequence of digits that make up pi are a random sequence - you
3 >> > can analyze the order any way you want and you'll find no inherent
4 >> > pattern.
5 > Actually, the sequence of digits is most definitely *not* random. If
6 > the sequence of digits is written any other way then the value is not
7 > Pi. Hence the sequence is unique, not random.
8 >
9 > I think what you are grasping for is that the frequency of distinct
10 > digits tends to be uniform: 0's occur as often as 1's as often ... as
11 > 9's. Note that the "as often as" operator is really approximate for
12 > finite sub-sequences, but is asymptotically accurate.
13 >
14 > Moreover, this is the same in any number base: the binary
15 > representation has 0's occurring as often as 1's; the ternary
16 > representation has 0's occurring as often as 1' and as often as 2's;
17 > etc., etc.
18 >
19 > Such numbers are called "normal". It was a poor choice of name, but
20 > we are stuck with it. I would have called them "digit soup" numbers
21 > -- an oblique reference to alphabet soup.
22 >
23
24 You grasp correctly what I was saying :-)
25
26 I'm not formally trained in mathematics so I often get the terminology
27 wrong or just don't know the accepted words for a concept. Lucky for me
28 though, English is a heavily overloaded language and there's always more
29 than one way to communicate something
30
31 --
32 Alan McKinnon
33 alan.mckinnon@×××××.com

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: OT Best way to compress files with digits Peter Humphrey <peter@××××××××××××.uk>