this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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No Stupid Questions

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There is no such thing as a Stupid Question!

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[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 day ago

Yes, we’ve proven that pi is an irrational number and therefore has infinitely many digits.

if you picked one digit as the “last” one to start with, then you could express it as an integer faction and it wouldn’t be irrational. So that can’t happen.

You can express pi in irrational bases like base pi or tau, and then you have a finite number of digits (1), but that’s just putting a trench coat on top of pi and pretending it’s finite length so you can get into the movies. I don’t even know what you’d call those digits. But they wouldn’t let pi into the airport or courthouse like that.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

Zero followed by a one in base 𝛑.

[–] NightFantom@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's also impossible to recite pi forwards (entirely).

[–] sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

But i mean to even begin to backwards is far less trivial

[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wouldn’t it be equally nontrivial?

Infinite complexity is still infinite complexity. Doesn’t matter the direction.

[–] sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Pi has one end: 3(.14...) (trivial) "Starting at the end of pi": (non-trivial)

[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

The complexity doesn’t decrease either direction but ok! It’s still infinite.

[–] NightFantom@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

True, but ending is a lot simpler than forwards 🙃

[–] jaselle@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

This is true of some rational numbers as well. Take 1/7 for instance.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

"The train tracks all run parallel but they'll all meet up one day."

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 5 points 1 day ago

Being that it’s an irrational number it’s infinite, and to properly recite something backwards you’d have to start with the end which is impossible. But if you start from somewhere in the middle of the number and recite it backwards that would be possible, eg. 41.3. Depends on how much of a stickler you want to be about the rules of where you’re allowed to start I guess for your definition of impossible.

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago

eerht tniop eno ruof eno evif enin owt xis...

and so on