Now that the God
particle (Higgs boson) has apparently been found and made it to the media on Pi Day (!),
how about we search for God himself or, at least, his nephew (and that’s a poetic license, but of
course, since both I and Peter Higgs are atheists).
After watching the glorious idea of the song
for π (which could go by the name 'the pi in piano') it hit me: how about the DNA of (i.e. generated by the sequence of numbers in) π,
e and, eventually, other famous transcendental numbers*?
I know, the DNA plays with 4 letters and 10 is not a
multiple of 4. Of course we can be creative and find plenty of ways around
that. Quite handy, for instance, would be to use the Base 4. To each digit (out
of 0 – 1 – 2 and 3) we assign a letter. There will be 4! = 24 possible
combinations.
Now I’m not saying we’ll be able to create some impossible
entities such as, say, an honest politician, but could any (even only
partially) meaningful DNA sequencing pop up? Of course that a combination of
the meaningful DNA sequences of different transcendental numbers is also to be
considered (remember, the intriguing e^π is a combination of two transcendental numbers).
P.S. I just saw the “song
for π” some 2 hours ago, I did some quick online search and didn’t find
anything close to the "DNA of pi" in the sense I've mentioned it. Someone let me know if it already happened,
it looks like a fine brain teaser to me.
2. And since I’m at it, how about April 13 (4/13 --> 413 =
314 backwards) being declared the Anti Pi Day?
Hey, we can all use another paid holiday, this one celebrating the
mathematically challenged (i.e., most of the) humans.
***
Added on May 2nd, 2013
(So I won’t have to
write long emails to the academics/researchers that show interest in this
matter)
This reverse engineering research, if intelligently done, can’t
but spectacularly advance our knowledge. There’s an infinite set of numbers,
DNA-wise, that make sense, and this is not some hypothesis or theory, but a
FACT: just take into account the trillion of trillion of … trillion of life
forms/living entities in the history of this planet, AND the ones that come to
life every second. And counting …
Common sense also tells us that, at least within our
universe, there’s an even larger infinite of numbers that would lead
nowhere, life/intelligence-wise.
So where do we start? (A) Choose the lottery numbers for the
last 30 years and see what, if anything, comes up? (B) Starting from a dubious
(to say the least) premise* like in this
story (and, hey, their research got funded!)? Or
(C) Looking for some particularly intriguing AND FUNDAMENTAL
numbers? Remember, we’re trying to create life, the more intelligent, the
better. The Fibonacci series,
so much associated with life, should also be taken into account.
And speaking about life we can’t but remember the fine-tuning of the
universe issue. Plenty of glorious fundamental constants (although not all of
them have enough digits for us to play with). But the transcendental
numbers have all the digits we need and then some.
OK now, we cannot – as of right now -- process all the π’s
digits (or any infinite display of digits, for that matter) to achieve the
absolute knowledge, but if we can process enough numbers, for now, to create (A) the best ever guinea pig (I imagine a computer
model, not some sort of entity to torture) for medical/lab research and/or (B)
some cheap and abundant alternative energy and/or (C) detection and cure for
any disease, and/or…. (N) and so on, that’d clearly be fantastic steps forward.
In my opinion if we could create an intelligent
machine/entity able to create a smarter machine/entity we’ll be on our (asymptotically)
way towards absolute knowledge. So how about we start with π …
… Although if I had the funding, the team and a state of the
art lab I would check “n” fundamental numbers in parallel and constantly
compare the results. I’d also check – within the resources and common sense -- if
any mixing would lead somewhere. Remember: There are infinite
combinations of numbers that DO lead somewhere, but we have to intelligently
design a research method to improve the probability of hitting this infinite, rather than the larger infinite
leading nowhere.
* Bottom line: I’m sure that my proposal is based on a by far more
solid premise than the Moore’s Law: The fundamental constants/numbers are here,
to rule our universe, for more than one reason (or, should I say, for ALL the
reasons that, so far, we’ve been too blind, or inept, to figure out?)
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