Posted on 06/18/2008 2:03:24 PM PDT by BGHater
I thought the Europeans used a comma.
ML/NJ
So we’ve learned two things.
Space Aliens use base 10, and therefore have ten digits just like humans.
Despite having 10 digits and using base 10, Space Aliens do not use the metric system. (If they did they’d us a comma as a radix character)...
You're right. So obviously Americans were influenced, and perhaps helped by Aliens.
IF you are coming all this way, I’d assume you’d have figured out that we are a based 10 kinda species.
pi in octal
3.110375524
pi in hexadecimal
3.243F6A8885
pi in base pi
1.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Yeah, what he said.
I never thought it was aliens... I just thought it was cool he could look at image and see that!
Of course the aliens could be setting it up so we could decipher it; for their own inscutable reasons, of course.
If they were really aliens they would have used a binary representation of pi, though...
My understanding is that the comma isn't required by the metric system. From FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions about the metric system:
As for international and national standards organizations' opinions, ISO 31-0:1992, Quantities and units — Part 0: General Principles, in Section 3.3.2 says, “The decimal sign is either the comma on the line or the point on the line.” (This was reworded by Amendment 2.)
IEEE/ASTM SI 10-2002, American National Standard for Use of the International System of Units (SI): The Modern Metric System, Section 3.5.4.1, says, “In the U.S., the decimal marker is a dot on the line.”
The aliens aren't the only ones with too much free time.
Save for possible tattoo.
Though this is a clever formulation by both the crop-vandal and the fella who deciphered it (maybe the same dude) ... it isn’t the number itself, but how it ends, that jumps out at me.
>> followed by three circles, or dots, acknowledging that Pi is infinite. [designated “ellipsis” in the picture]
It is this part which makes me think this is a really clever hoax perpetrated by someone who saw Contact (w/ Jodie Foster) and Signs (Mel Gibson) one too many times.
In a base-10 formulation of pi (thanks to “bolobaby” on that one, wouldn’t have caught that), the value would be universal and thus a reasonable way of communicating mathematically with other intelligent species. The ellipsis (”...”), however, which is flippantly thrown into the explanation, is a unique method of punctuation (appearing primarily in English, though some in other languages as well) which would not appear in a purely mathematical communication from an extraterrestrial.
A clever and impressive hoax — but a hoax nonetheless.
H
Yeah, that’s what I thought it was too!
OK, fine ... do we get the cache of advanced Asgard weapons now?
That's going to be hard to recognize.
Aliens just use their laser blasters, so it's not a problem for them.
NYACK, N.Y. - Suburban New York students who decided to play a prank by removing thousands of desks and chairs from classrooms had the tables turned on them when someone later arranged the furniture to look like a penis.
About 100 students in Nyack High School’s annual senior prank Tuesday night lined up the furniture in the shape of a giant “2008” on a field behind the school. But another group later used it to fashion a penis, which other students and teachers found the next morning.
Seventeen-year-old senior Erin Cummings says it was upsetting to see her classmates’ hard work turned into a huge penis even though many other students thought it was hilarious.
Principal Daniel Nicholson says he authorized the “2008” shape. He and police say the penis shape was just another prank so they’re not investigating.
And amazingly like humans, the aliens use a period.
Wait is that Old Europe or New Europe?
I wish these pesky outer space aliens would stop interfering with mankind’s ability to grow food for fuel. :)
This is obviously the key to solve global warming. Just add the tax and the whole issue will be solved.
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