Is your date of birth in pi?

March 13, 2002 12:12 PM

Is your date of birth in pi? Of course it is, eventually. But are you one of the lucky 63% whose special day falls within the first 100,000,000 digits? How about your Social Security Number? That club is even more exclusive. A good tool for the pi-curious.
posted by OneBallJay (45 comments total)

[groan]

Also be sure to check out the startling relationship of the digits in pi to the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything.
posted by OneBallJay at 12:14 PM on March 13, 2002

"The string 020661 was found at position 396951 counting from the first digit after the decimal point. The 3. is not counted. "

Way cool. BTW, it seems that many of the presents MeFiers sent to me for my most recent birthday got lost in the mail.
posted by anapestic at 12:26 PM on March 13, 2002

Birthday position: 277901

Why don't I feel so exclusive?
posted by trox at 12:30 PM on March 13, 2002

But where is your MeFi number in pi? Mine (13598) is at 13599. Now that's exclusive, man.
posted by macadamiaranch at 12:33 PM on March 13, 2002

6131108 if I use mm/dd/yyyy. I'm British though, so really I'm position 60963152 which in comparison is very poor indeed. My life is ruined. I'll cheer up on my birthday (17/06/1973).
posted by vbfg at 12:34 PM on March 13, 2002

Slightly less impressive but still below the 100,000,000 mark:

The string 101882 was found at position 1219758

My SSN, however, isn't found at all.
posted by tomorama at 12:34 PM on March 13, 2002

My ss# is found at around 81 MILLION. Do I get a prize?
posted by ColdChef at 12:44 PM on March 13, 2002

If you put in my MeFi number in the "positions" slot, the ten numbers you get can be rearranged to get my phone number at work. I am sufficiently freaked out.
posted by ColdChef at 12:47 PM on March 13, 2002

are you one of the lucky 63%

No. But since the minority is on this side, it is more exclusive over here. Ha ha.
posted by transient at 12:51 PM on March 13, 2002

The string 9771 was found at position 2324
9771=September 7, 1971
I want the prize...
posted by internal at 12:55 PM on March 13, 2002

My birthday is March 14 (3.14) and I was born 100 years to the day after Einstein. In Germany, no less.

Does that count?
posted by jragon at 1:00 PM on March 13, 2002

If you put in my MeFi number in the "positions" slot, the ten numbers you get can be rearranged to get my phone number at work. I am sufficiently freaked out.

Ooh! How long before this becomes the new numerology/colourology/astrology/whatever?
posted by biscotti at 1:02 PM on March 13, 2002

speaking of which.. tomorrow is Pi day! 3.14 =)
posted by alex3005 at 1:10 PM on March 13, 2002

I'm at 96711, so I guess I'm in the exclusive < 100,000 club. I feel weird about entering my birthdate AND my social security number though.
posted by Hildago at 1:13 PM on March 13, 2002

02071979 - 67,752,643
020779 - 3,565,467
MEFI [10563] - 63,214
EAT IT </ sarcasm >
posted by plemeljr at 1:27 PM on March 13, 2002

wow. In 1993 I was shown a program called Mosaic and I was instantly hooked. About a month later I found a site that does just was this one does (digits of Pi). Nice to know it's still around.
posted by Qubit at 1:28 PM on March 13, 2002

Not to spoil your fun, but it's not very smart to enter social security numbers to a nonsecure web form.
posted by PrinceValium at 1:30 PM on March 13, 2002

111271 was found at position 49970. w00t, I guess.

but 11121971 is 500,000,000 plus.

Zut alors! Now you all know my birthday! Whatever you do, please don't buy me expensive gifts. That would be embarrassing for both of us. Or cake.
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:33 PM on March 13, 2002

The string 9771 was found at position 2324

no fair! you need to use six digits (at least).

"The string 090771 was found at position 801108"

Here's something kinda cool. i put in the string "314159" which are the first six digits of pi. Those digits show up at position "176451". I then put those digits in. They showed up at position 3983148. You can keep going with that for a long time--i think it's over 20 times. For a minute, I thought I had discovered the secret of pi. :-)
posted by jpoulos at 1:36 PM on March 13, 2002

Not to spoil your fun, but it's not very smart to enter social security numbers to a nonsecure web form

Whew!, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this.
posted by CJB at 1:43 PM on March 13, 2002

pi is going to steal your identity and max out your credit cards. Bad pi! Bad!
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:44 PM on March 13, 2002

My MeFi number was found at position 8502. You may all kiss my ring.
posted by anapestic at 1:48 PM on March 13, 2002

The string 4350 was found at position 2858.

just sayin.
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:51 PM on March 13, 2002

my birthday (062479) was found at position 42621 counting from the first digit after the decimal point. So, yes, i'm in the lucky, uh, majority. MeFi #? found at position 14543. hmm.

Unforunately, the guy that has MeFi # 1415 appears to have fleeted rather quickly.

Same with 3141
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:52 PM on March 13, 2002

grr, that should have said "fleed", not "fleeted". damn afternoon doldrums.
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:53 PM on March 13, 2002

I wonder [i'm not versed in crypto] wheter or not you could use pi as a cipher. It would be inherently less secure then pgp, but would be cool for "fun" geeky stuff. Like take the first 150,000,000 digits and find out how many times 1 occurs, and that is the cipher for "A". How many times 2 occurs, that would be "B". This is just a new take on the old roman pad cipher, but I guess the more layers of obfuscation doesn't make it more secure.

Oh well...that is my ramble on pi...it is too hot & sunny in our office and I am tired. This is the result.
posted by plemeljr at 1:54 PM on March 13, 2002

The following three people are MeFi kings as their MeFi user numbers all occur starting at the first position. And since two of them don't seem to be active, mathowie is king. But we knew that.

mathowie (mefi user 1)
wdc (mefi user 141)
rogde (mefi user 1415)
posted by obfusciatrist at 2:01 PM on March 13, 2002

I think the more important question here is, "Can I find pie in my birthday?"
posted by adamv at 2:01 PM on March 13, 2002

The string 2249 was found at position 661

[whistles idly]
posted by jpoulos at 2:04 PM on March 13, 2002

For a minute, I thought I had discovered the secret of pi.

Good thing you didn't. I hear a drill to the head is the only way to regain sanity after such a discovery.
posted by OneBallJay at 2:05 PM on March 13, 2002

My MeFi#, 1515, was found at position 1098 counting from the first digit after the decimal point.

Woohoo
posted by plaino at 2:17 PM on March 13, 2002

But where is your MeFi number in pi? Mine (13598) is at 13599. Now that's exclusive, man.

That's creepy that for this case

Number = n
Position = n+1

I wonder how often that happens?
posted by jonah at 2:19 PM on March 13, 2002

My bday 8572 (Aug 5 72) was found at 1105. SO I WIN!!!!!
posted by zeoslap at 2:20 PM on March 13, 2002

Try searching your B-day then search its position, then search that position, then search that position, and so on... try to find a loop. I gave up after about 40 iterations or so because the resulting position keeps getting larger and only once in awhile it goes backward. Actually, it's kinda like gambling.
posted by plaino at 2:37 PM on March 13, 2002

Here's an idea for a site: users enter their SSN and birthdate and we'll find them in Pi, then enter their mother's maiden name and we'll find it in Shakespeare or the Bible or something. Excuse me while I write up a business plan...
posted by TimeFactor at 2:56 PM on March 13, 2002

By the way, my eurostyle birthdate without zeroes is at position 8. Beat that.
posted by TimeFactor at 2:59 PM on March 13, 2002

IMO the most interesting searches are pattern repetitions. Try 99999999. What are the chances of that? 1 in 36,356,642, apparently.
posted by PrinceValium at 3:00 PM on March 13, 2002

the statement "But are you one of the lucky 63% whose special day falls within the first 100,000,000 digits?" assumes you enter your birthday as an 8 digit number. as stated here.

09091972 found at 14949050. yay me!
posted by awadwatt at 6:22 PM on March 13, 2002

010677 was found at position 472,415

060177 was found at position 1,017,569

01061977 was found at position 93,831,439

06011977 did not occur in the first 100000000

This leads me to believe Pi is blatantly US oriented. Terrorist should blow it up.
posted by Neale at 6:51 PM on March 13, 2002

He means "pi" folks. Terrorists should blow up "pi." Relax. Deep breaths.
posted by ColdChef at 7:15 PM on March 13, 2002

The best I can do is position 1330, which is for 9660, my birthday without the zeros (with zeros, it goes up past 2.1 million, which isn't as much fun but still beats working, which is what I really should be doing right now).
posted by diddlegnome at 8:18 PM on March 13, 2002

My MeFi number is at position 372. My birthday in ISO notation is at position 78765923. I don't know why I bothered looking this up, except to gloat over my low number or something...
posted by Electric Elf at 9:37 PM on March 13, 2002

My birthday was so high up I didn't bother [curse those double-digit months!] but my MeFi number struck this gold:

The string 1281 was found at position 8393 counting from the first digit after the decimal point.

w00t. Coincidentally, our new phone # ends with 8323. [I didn't say it was much of a coincidence.]
posted by Nyx at 11:00 PM on March 13, 2002

But where is your MeFi number in pi? Mine (13598) is at 13599. Now that's exclusive, man.

That's creepy that for this case

Number = n
Position = n+1

I wonder how often that happens?

Here's hoping for 13600.
posted by vbfg at 1:41 AM on March 14, 2002

Birthday (as mmddyy): 750!
Birthday (as mmddyyyy): 49709923 :(
My wife's birthday (as mmddyy): 707739
My wife's birthday (as mmddyyyy): 74036838
MF profile number: 96703

(also tried my telephone and cell phone numbers, but no dice).
posted by wheat at 2:51 PM on March 14, 2002