[Wikipedia-l] Re: pi-eyed

Thu Oct 21 02:36:01 UTC 2004

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> When at Wikisources [[Pi to 1,000,000 places]] an anonymous user changes 
> the first 10 digits of line 14320 from "0628419546" to "1516171819" how 
> is anyone possible able to know which is correct? :-) :'(

The obvious thing to do would be to revert it. The chances that the 
anonymous user knew pi to 1,000,000 decimal places and noticed the error 
are pretty small. The regularity of the sequence "1516171819" should be 
a giveaway, just like the sequence inserted in the same edit on the 
previous line "1234567890".

That said, a google search turned up a site apparently made for 
precisely this problem:

http://www.angio.net/pi/bigpi.cgi?UsrQuery=6014280388

Not that it matters, you only need tens of digits to solve any 
conceivable physical problem. What a waste of disk space.

-- Tim Starling