They’re probably the only things that “create” information in the sense that you can always grab another slice. Thank you delicious pi!

  • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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    30 days ago

    Is it actually information? I can give you the number two, but it’s not useful information until I also tell you which digit is significant and what the number means. Communicating information is still limited by the speed of light.

    • Deebster@infosec.pub
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      30 days ago

      I don’t see why not, it’s just numbers, which is all we store most data as.

      You could use it as a source of pseudorandom numbers to encrypt an infinite data steam, e.g. we’ll encrypt using e, starting at position 40468.

    • Gork@lemm.ee
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      30 days ago

      Situationally, yes. “I want the next digit of pi” is information in that sense of the word. It’s not a particularly useful piece of information unless you’re building something that requires a circle with a circumferential precision larger than the width of our entire universe.

      • josephmbasile@lemmy.worldOP
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        29 days ago

        How many digits of Pi would you have to read for you to be able to reconstruct all of the information in the Universe up to this moment?

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      29 days ago

      Is it actually information?

      Yes. For every bit of number pi you get one bit of information.

      I can give you the number two

      You gave me log2(10) bits of information. Thanks.

      but it’s not useful information until I also tell you which digit is significant and what the number means.

      You are misunderstanding what informatiob is.

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        29 days ago

        I can give you √2 which is 16-bits of information as characters. It’s also an irrational number. How you express something doesn’t change the amount of information is contained in the message.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          29 days ago

          How you express something doesn’t change the amount of information is contained in the message.

          Welcome to the world of entropy coding.