[alexander_busek]

I once downloaded a text file containing the computed value of PI to twenty million digits and searched the text for certain phrases. I found my social security number and every telephone number I have ever had, somewhere in the text.

I'm calling B.S. on the claim about finding your SS number!

Twenty million digits can be segmented into approx. 20 million different nine-digit numbers (to be exact, they can be segmented into 19,999,992 different 9-digit numbers, because the final eight digits are useless by themselves).

(This isn't pertinent to my refutation, but: Assuming that even numbers like, e.g., 000-00-0001 and 999-99-9999 could be valid Social Security Numbers, there can be a maximum of only 999,999,999 different SS numbers in total. Of course, in actual fact, there are restrictions on valid SS numbers.)

I shall assume that roughly 200 million people have been issued unique SS numbers. But only 20 million (10% of the 19,999,992 mentioned above) will therefore be able to find their numbers in the first 20 million digits of pi.

The likelihood that you are one of those 20 million is thus about 10%.

Q.E.D.

Regards,

[flamberge]

The likelihood that you are one of those 20 million is thus about 10%.

Well lucky me then. It is in there. (No I am not going to post my SSN).

Try your own SSN. You may be quite surprised at the results.

[NorthMountain]

Pi Searcher

If you trust it ...

I searched my SSN, several phone numbers, came up empty. My birth data, expressed either as YYYYMMDD or DDMMYYYY is in there.