Talk:Six nines in pi

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Reformatting

The page does not properly display at page resolutions under about 1000px of width. This is because the image is floating to the right, and the full digits of pi do not wrap next to it. Thus, the image covers up the digits. Anyone who can fix this, please do. --TechnoGuyRob 22:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem also occurs on high resolutions with a large font size. I've factored the number of digits, and thus used blocks of 13 digits (using a table) so that the browser will automatically display as many blocks as it can on each line. It needs to be checked on MS Internet Explorer, which I don't have. — Lee J Haywood 22:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Lee. In Firefox, it messed up the last row for me with the spacing, so I added in a hack: I put white-colored zero's after the 9s. This isn't necessarily problematic, but definitely not desired, so anyone who knows a way that preserves both wrapping and spacing, please change the page accordingly. --TechnoGuyRob 00:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not everybody use graphical browsers and white backgrounds, and the zeros are confusing for those who can see them. I changed them to the actual digits of pi that come after the Feynman point. Henning Makholm 01:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reasoning underlying blocks of 13 digits? Or might it as well be 5, 10 or 20? Should it be reformatted?Proborc (talk) 09:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's no reason to reformat now; it looks fine. 13 digits is somewhat arbitrary (as 5, 10, or 20 would be), but I'll say it was a smart choice: 767=13×59, so using a block of 13 means the 99999 occurs at the end of a block. :) Shreevatsa (talk) 09:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Consecutive numbers

The phrase 'consecutive numbers' is used consistently when what is meant is 'repeated numbers' or 'consecutive occurrences of the same number'. Isn't there some better way to put this?

Agreed. Changed to "identical" Sir Isaac Lime (talk) 14:04, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sir Isaac, "consecutive" does not mean increasing like 1,2,3,4; it means digits that occur in adjacent positions. And simply saying "identical" digits does not make much sense — the "1" in the first decimal place is identical to the "1" in the third decimal place, but that is not what we care about in the article. Your edits have just made several sentences meaningless instead of confusing; I'll revert it for now and see what to do... probably "consecutive identical digits" is what we unfortunately need to use. Shreevatsa (talk) 14:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Randomly chosen Irrational number?

Do you mean randomly chosen natural number? An irrational number isn't guaranteed to have an equal chance of any particular digit sequence to occur -- it merely cannot be stated as the ratio of two whole numbers. While it's not proven or known if pi itself is a natural number, it seems that if you are going to make a probabilistic analysis of it you should just go ahead and assume it is. Otherwise, how will you what the expected values are? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.215.26.189 (talk) 14:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh actually I meant to say normal, not natural. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.215.26.189 (talk) 20:57, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since the set of numbers which are not normal has zero measure, I guess that with any "decent" probability distribution it is almost sure that you'd get a normal number. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 13:47, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not

The article calls these 9's an "intriguing coincidence" and states its probability of occurring at .08%. This is misleading, since it doesn't consider that Feynman would have noticed six 4's or six 7's, or for that matter seven 2's or five 6's. Once you add up all the probablilities of finding a series of repeated numbers somewhere near the beginning, it's hardly a coincidence at all.66.183.132.33 (talk) 06:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your point, but what the article actually says is "the probability of six 9s occurring this early in the decimal representation is only 0.08%" (emphasis added). This is a sourced quote, and to qualify it with our own observations would be contrary to Wikipedia's policy on original research. Even considering that other repeats are possible, though, the Feynman point is still remarkable for how early it occurs – note, for example, that there are no runs of five or even four consecutive identical digits before the Feynman point. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 07:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Taking issue with using reflist?

I think this is ridiculous, but User:CBM insists on this: WP:CITE says "[...] editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus." Therefore I am asking everyone to signal here, if he/she does not want to see <references /> replaced by {{reflist}}. If no one complains until Feb. 28, I'll replace it. --bender235 (talk) 23:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are confused about the purpose of the language in WP:CITE. The point of that part of WP:CITE is, like WP:ENGVAR, to avoid this sort of discussion by simply deferring to the established style. As long as {{reflist}} changes the size of text, I feel it is inappropriate to use. Other people are free to start articles that do use {{reflist}}, and I respect that by not removing it. On the other hand, articles that are started with foornotes but without {{reflist}} deserve equal respect. The guideline explicitly says that the first established style is the one that should be respected. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Carl, you need to realize that just because someone started an article doesn't mean the citation style the author chooses is set in stone. Wikipedia as a whole continuously progresses, new templates are developed, existing templates get new features, etc.

The one basic principle of Wikipedia is that no one owns an article. And because of that, no one should be put in the position to determine the design/layout of an article from now to all eternity. That would be absurd. --bender235 (talk) 03:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The point of things like ENGVAR is that everyone has their own preferences, and so articles would spend lots of time bouncing between different styles without a guideline to just leave them as they are. It is true that nobody owns the content of an article, but for issues such as whether to use "color" or "colour" and which citation style to use, our practice is that the first significant contributor gets to decide. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(Since I was asked to reply here.) As far as I can tell, the only significant difference, if any, is in the size of text, and there seems to be no good reason to change (or discuss) this. Shreevatsa (talk) 23:46, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(Also asked to reply here.) <references/> was added in November 2006 ([1]) when {{reflist}} was only one month old and was presumably not yet well-known. As Bender235 noted on Carl's talk page, new referencing templates can introduce improved functionality to Wikipedia. But by Carl's interpretation of WP:CITEHOW, a new template would not be incorporated into existing articles without discussion in every article's talk page, stymying progress. This is surely not the intention of WP:CITEHOW. I've always assumed WP:CITEHOW was to discourage editors from wasting time and frustrating other contributors by changing the entire citation style, eg from <ref> style to Author (date) style. I don't think contributors are expected to obtain consensus before making such a trivial change as Bender235 has made. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If nobody objects, then (somewhat trivially) nobody objects. But when someone does object to a change in style, WP:CITEHOW has clear advice: "where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected." I can explain why I object to the small font size: I think it trivializes the role of references, and reinforces the viewpoint that references are just a sort of decoration that is hung on the article to make it look better. If we actually expect people to read and use the references, we should keep the font size the same as the surrounding text.

Of course this is a stylistic argument, and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. The point of the "first major contributor" rule is that there will never be agreement on these sorts of minor issues (because of the bike shed effect) and so we need some arbitrary rule to make the decision. The rule that we have arrived at is to use whatever styler was established first. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. You make a very reasonable point, one that I hadn't thought of. I'd been under the impression you objected to the change per se, without preferring one style over the other. I guess we should all leave the article as it is then, lest we find ourselves forever immortalised for others' amusement. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It really makes no sense to me why the creator of an article, although he should know (per WP:OWN) "that others will edit it" and may even delete all of the initial content, still has the "power" to determine the article's style for all eternity. Those "minor issues" like templates and overall appearance are part of what will be edited by someone, sooner or later. As WP:OWN states: "You cannot stop everyone in the world from editing "your" stuff, once you have posted it to Wikipedia. As each edit page clearly states: If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here." --bender235 (talk) 14:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is referring to content, rather than style. The reason that ENGVAR and CITEHOW are the way they are is to give an arbitrary but simple rule to resolve style discussions, so that people can spend more time thinking about the content and less time thinking about stylistic matters. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:37, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But style discussions should not be suppressed. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style has been modified numerously over the past years, and will be modified in the future. That rule of thumb "leave the original style if there's no consensus" does not mean that the style can't be changed if there is consensus. --bender235 (talk) 15:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. But WP:CITE is clear that there is not consensus about how to style citations. That's why WP:CITE has two different passages about how the originally-chosen citation style should be maintained. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bender235, I think the idea is that style discussions ought to be consolidated at a relevant project page, such as WT:CITE or WT:MOS. If a consensus were to emerge that one particular style was outright superior to another, then editors would be justified in replacing the deprecated style with the superior style in any article, and each article's first significant contributor would have no special power. But Carl has demonstrated that, in the case of <references/> vs {{reflist}}, no such consensus presently exists. That being the case, there's no point having separate debates about the merits of each style on the talk pages of thousands of individual articles. Instead, we go with the first significant contributor as an arbitrary but simple way of resolving the choice of style, freeing our time to focus on content. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 04:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CITE explicitely says that there is no recommened standard for all of Wikipedia. Yet for a single article, the editor(s) can decide to change the citation style. And we do right here? Does anybody oppose using {{Reflist}} for any reason other than poiting out that Wikipedia as a whole has no recommended standard as of now? --bender235 (talk) 13:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Carl/CBM has already opposed using reflist, so his opposition means there is no consensus to change. In the hope of terminating this trivial discussion, I also hereby oppose the change: I like the bigger font. I hope this makes it clear that there is no consensus to change, and no reason to prolong this discussion. Shreevatsa (talk) 13:41, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. End of discussion. --bender235 (talk) 13:51, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to be late to the party; also opposing. There's enough to do on Wikipedia that we don't need such squabbles. htom (talk) 21:28, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Did he do it?

I understand Feynman was joking. However, did he actually follow through and learn the sequence? This could be a fun/interesting addition to the article. --62.107.127.132 (talk) 17:41, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tau

Note that tau (also known as 2pi), the real circle constant, has a feynman point of 7 consecutive 9s!

http://tauday.com/tau_digits