Pi and the Eternal
π and the Eternal
I was recently on a flight home from Dallas when I started seeing things, familiar things that I had seen dozens of times before, more profoundly than I ever had. In the endless rolling cloud-mountains and cloud-caves, cloud-valleys and cloud-plains, I recognized the patterns of the landscape which framed my youth, and contemplated the much larger underwater mountain ranges, caves, valleys and plains which the casual boater sails above without ever pondering the abyss below. In the sky, the distance between traffic is measured in miles, and it is easy to feel close to the variation and repetition of eternity’s music, as if you could throw yourself from the airplane directly into God’s waiting arms.
As night overpowered the day, the cities and towns which I saw through the microscopic lens of a window seat appeared as naked beasts, as parasitic organisms whose tentacles were limited only by the municipalities’ willingness to pay the power company. Their interstate arteries pulsated with slow-moving, microscopic, glowing white blood cells, which I knew to be vehicular traffic. Yet I found it unimaginable that each of these cells contained within it at least one, possibly more sub-cellular particles, which I knew to be human beings, each of which contained within itself the genetic code for the entire organism known as the city at night. The nighttime amoeba operates in a time frame much different from that of its component particles. It takes decades, sometimes centuries, to swallow other, nearby amoebae. Accelerated to the pace of the sub-cellular particles, the passing of day and night must occur to the amoebae as in incessant strobe light.
Back on the ground, I imagine that I’m inside the amoeba, but I realize quickly that my scale is all wrong. The amoeba is actually nothing more than a fungus, growing slowly upon the body of its host, a round, single-celled organism floating through water-space, pulled by gravity into a love-dance with a far superior cell called the sun—it is not the sun’s only suitor, but like its fellows, it will eventually be consumed in penetration of its lover. The offspring of this final rendezvous may indeed be the genesis of yet another cell, just as the cell we call the moon still carries the DNA of its parent, Earth. The fungus isn’t concerned about the final rendezvous—it knows its host will be depleted of life long before consummation.
It is known that the volume of an atom is occupied almost exclusively by nothing at all; that is to say, by space. Thus, the spatial relationship between the nucleus and the electrons in an atom is analogous to that between the sun and the outer planets in the solar system, which makes up, in a certain sense, a single atom with nine electrons. What compound is it that is comprised, at least partially, of that atom which is our solar system? Is it a liquid, solid, gas, or does it take some yet unknown form? Is it perhaps part of an infinitely larger gasoline molecule, which is in turn being burnt by some beings whose presence is so much bigger than the known universe that it eclipses our ability to imagine or detect it?
I am starting to feel infinity--I’m inside it and it’s inside me. Yet it is outside of space, since space is measured as distance between objects, and we still don’t know what object our solar-system-atom is helping to build—how can we even begin to measure distances? Infinity exists within non-time--we have to live a trillion lifetimes to see just a single one of its days. The higher being experiences this day as a constant, dim light, which only upon extreme deceleration is revealed as a strobe of sunrises and sunsets. I feel infinity and eternity; it’s all around me, out there in the universe, inside my breast. I had no words for it, until now.
The universe brought me to Pi, that magical number which describes the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle. Mathematically and ontologically, Pi is both irrational and transcendental. It is the concubine of the supreme giver of the law, Gravity, which demands reverence in the form of orbits. Whatever being is burning the gasoline molecule that our solar system helps to build may not care about the sub-sub-sub-atomic particles called humans which make up the fungus on the cell called earth, but it is doubtlessly aware of Pi’s ubiquity, even if it doesn’t make such a big deal of it as I do.
As an irrational number, Pi cannot be arrived at by dividing or multiplying finite numbers or equations. Its decimal portion goes on forever, without ever repeating itself. It defies all patterns and predictions, and laughs out loud at those who try to contain or possess it. Within the first 2 million digits of Pi, there is approximately a 65% chance that any given 10-digit sequence will be contained somewhere in the string. But what are 2 million digits in the face of eternity? Mathematically, there is a 100% probability that ANY sequence of numbers of ANY length is contained in Pi, since Pi is infinitely large. This is not an illusion. It is an obvious fact—one whose contemplation opens the floodgates of possibility. But we could go further and be no less correct: the DNA code of every human being, when reduced to digits, is contained within Pi, as is the digital text of every book that has ever been written or ever will be written.
As if that weren’t enough, there’s even more somber news for the lovers of rationality, both mathematical and philosophical: Pi isn’t unique among numbers. There are infinitely many other irrational numbers out there, and there are also lots of other transcendental numbers (an uncountable number of them, to be exact). So there you have it—a single, discreet number contains the entire universe, and it’s only one of an infinite number of “equally” infinite numbers! How quickly our idolized systems of language fail us in the face of the eternal!
Naturally, once we re-discover our high-school pal named Pi, we want to know what we can do about it. For the revolutionaries among you, I have some unfortunate news: this information is not actionable. Nor is it a plot of the ruling classes or their lackeys within academia. It doesn’t care about race, class, gender, imperialism, hunger, love, or sex. It doesn’t care if we annihilate ourselves or direct our evolution intelligently. Pi isn’t active, it simply is. It’s not a concept or a percept; it has no values except its own. It’s not a construct of our number system—it simply reveals itself through the decimal system, as it does through all other number systems that we know of. It contains within its digital song all the good and all the evil of the universe and makes a joke of their opposition. It promises neither salvation nor damnation. It is neither benevolent nor jealous. Its invitation is open. I would invite you to join me inside, but you’re already here.
I was recently on a flight home from Dallas when I started seeing things, familiar things that I had seen dozens of times before, more profoundly than I ever had. In the endless rolling cloud-mountains and cloud-caves, cloud-valleys and cloud-plains, I recognized the patterns of the landscape which framed my youth, and contemplated the much larger underwater mountain ranges, caves, valleys and plains which the casual boater sails above without ever pondering the abyss below. In the sky, the distance between traffic is measured in miles, and it is easy to feel close to the variation and repetition of eternity’s music, as if you could throw yourself from the airplane directly into God’s waiting arms.
As night overpowered the day, the cities and towns which I saw through the microscopic lens of a window seat appeared as naked beasts, as parasitic organisms whose tentacles were limited only by the municipalities’ willingness to pay the power company. Their interstate arteries pulsated with slow-moving, microscopic, glowing white blood cells, which I knew to be vehicular traffic. Yet I found it unimaginable that each of these cells contained within it at least one, possibly more sub-cellular particles, which I knew to be human beings, each of which contained within itself the genetic code for the entire organism known as the city at night. The nighttime amoeba operates in a time frame much different from that of its component particles. It takes decades, sometimes centuries, to swallow other, nearby amoebae. Accelerated to the pace of the sub-cellular particles, the passing of day and night must occur to the amoebae as in incessant strobe light.
Back on the ground, I imagine that I’m inside the amoeba, but I realize quickly that my scale is all wrong. The amoeba is actually nothing more than a fungus, growing slowly upon the body of its host, a round, single-celled organism floating through water-space, pulled by gravity into a love-dance with a far superior cell called the sun—it is not the sun’s only suitor, but like its fellows, it will eventually be consumed in penetration of its lover. The offspring of this final rendezvous may indeed be the genesis of yet another cell, just as the cell we call the moon still carries the DNA of its parent, Earth. The fungus isn’t concerned about the final rendezvous—it knows its host will be depleted of life long before consummation.
It is known that the volume of an atom is occupied almost exclusively by nothing at all; that is to say, by space. Thus, the spatial relationship between the nucleus and the electrons in an atom is analogous to that between the sun and the outer planets in the solar system, which makes up, in a certain sense, a single atom with nine electrons. What compound is it that is comprised, at least partially, of that atom which is our solar system? Is it a liquid, solid, gas, or does it take some yet unknown form? Is it perhaps part of an infinitely larger gasoline molecule, which is in turn being burnt by some beings whose presence is so much bigger than the known universe that it eclipses our ability to imagine or detect it?
I am starting to feel infinity--I’m inside it and it’s inside me. Yet it is outside of space, since space is measured as distance between objects, and we still don’t know what object our solar-system-atom is helping to build—how can we even begin to measure distances? Infinity exists within non-time--we have to live a trillion lifetimes to see just a single one of its days. The higher being experiences this day as a constant, dim light, which only upon extreme deceleration is revealed as a strobe of sunrises and sunsets. I feel infinity and eternity; it’s all around me, out there in the universe, inside my breast. I had no words for it, until now.
The universe brought me to Pi, that magical number which describes the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle. Mathematically and ontologically, Pi is both irrational and transcendental. It is the concubine of the supreme giver of the law, Gravity, which demands reverence in the form of orbits. Whatever being is burning the gasoline molecule that our solar system helps to build may not care about the sub-sub-sub-atomic particles called humans which make up the fungus on the cell called earth, but it is doubtlessly aware of Pi’s ubiquity, even if it doesn’t make such a big deal of it as I do.
As an irrational number, Pi cannot be arrived at by dividing or multiplying finite numbers or equations. Its decimal portion goes on forever, without ever repeating itself. It defies all patterns and predictions, and laughs out loud at those who try to contain or possess it. Within the first 2 million digits of Pi, there is approximately a 65% chance that any given 10-digit sequence will be contained somewhere in the string. But what are 2 million digits in the face of eternity? Mathematically, there is a 100% probability that ANY sequence of numbers of ANY length is contained in Pi, since Pi is infinitely large. This is not an illusion. It is an obvious fact—one whose contemplation opens the floodgates of possibility. But we could go further and be no less correct: the DNA code of every human being, when reduced to digits, is contained within Pi, as is the digital text of every book that has ever been written or ever will be written.
As if that weren’t enough, there’s even more somber news for the lovers of rationality, both mathematical and philosophical: Pi isn’t unique among numbers. There are infinitely many other irrational numbers out there, and there are also lots of other transcendental numbers (an uncountable number of them, to be exact). So there you have it—a single, discreet number contains the entire universe, and it’s only one of an infinite number of “equally” infinite numbers! How quickly our idolized systems of language fail us in the face of the eternal!
Naturally, once we re-discover our high-school pal named Pi, we want to know what we can do about it. For the revolutionaries among you, I have some unfortunate news: this information is not actionable. Nor is it a plot of the ruling classes or their lackeys within academia. It doesn’t care about race, class, gender, imperialism, hunger, love, or sex. It doesn’t care if we annihilate ourselves or direct our evolution intelligently. Pi isn’t active, it simply is. It’s not a concept or a percept; it has no values except its own. It’s not a construct of our number system—it simply reveals itself through the decimal system, as it does through all other number systems that we know of. It contains within its digital song all the good and all the evil of the universe and makes a joke of their opposition. It promises neither salvation nor damnation. It is neither benevolent nor jealous. Its invitation is open. I would invite you to join me inside, but you’re already here.
posted by Haldrik at 4:39 PM
1 Comments:
I haven't read it yet...I just wanted to be the first person to comment
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