# Is there a secret message in the first decimals of PI?

Is there a secret message encoded in the first decimals of $$\pi$$?

Source: Vi Hart

• Could the downvoter please elaborate on their reason for doing so? – Bass Dec 19 '18 at 21:20
• This legitamately seems like an interesting question — although potentially opinion-based. – Hugh Dec 19 '18 at 21:29
• Well, I can't speak for the other downvoters, but if it's a puzzle, it's very dull: the only possible answer is NO, it's a mathematical/physical constant. As a physics question about whether pi is a mathematical or physical constant, it's off topic (the answer is, mathematical). As a theological question about what God may or may not have done when He created the integers, it's off topic. – deep thought Dec 20 '18 at 0:07
• @Bass I share your frustration but you don't really need to get offensive. – rhsquared Dec 20 '18 at 8:48
• I reopened this; if hexomino's answer, or something at least equally good, is what Bass intended, then I think it's reasonable to consider it a valid puzzle. (While liking hexomino's answer a lot, I confess that I retain a bit of sympathy with the downvoters and close-voters.) I wonder whether we need some standard way for posters to say "no, really, this is better than it looks"; I think Bass has enough credibility that doing so might have saved this puzzle from the frosty reception it got. – Gareth McCaughan Dec 20 '18 at 22:26

Updated: Solution

The first four digits after the decimal point in $$\pi$$ are 1415. If we convert this using an alphabet cipher ($$A=1, B=2, \ldots, Z=26$$) we get $$14|15 \rightarrow NO$$ So we have

Q: "Is there a secret message encoded in the first decimals of $$\pi$$?"
A: "NO"

If we take $$\pi$$ up to eight digits after the decimal point i.e, $$3.14159265$$ and use an alphabet cipher ($$A=1, B=2, \ldots, Z=26$$) we can construct the following $$3.14|15|9|26|5 \rightarrow C.NOIZE$$ and C-Noize is apparently a musical artist with some music on youtube.

So maybe the universe is telling us its favourite type of music?

• I tried to exclude the integer part by mentioning "decimals", but I'm not really certain if English works that way.. Anyway, you are more than 200% of the way there :-) – Bass Dec 20 '18 at 16:42
• @Bass, thanks for the suggestion. I've updated my answer which I think is in line with your hint. – hexomino Dec 20 '18 at 17:10
• That's it, exactly :-) Tick will follow in a couple of days. – Bass Dec 20 '18 at 23:02
• haha, ok, I take it back :-P – deep thought Dec 21 '18 at 0:00
• It is amusing that the presence of the answer contradicts that very same answer ;-) – Phylyp Dec 22 '18 at 10:55

Here's my guess

Take the first 100 digits of pi: 1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679

STEP 1: Based on whether a digit is odd and even, convert it to AB format. Result: ABAAA BBAAA BAAAA BABBB BBBAA BABAA ABBBB BAAAA BAAAA AAAAB ABBBA ABABB AABAB ABABB BBBBB BBBAA BBBBB ABBBA ABBAA ABAAA

STEP 2: This obviously relates to Francis Bacon's biliteral cipher (see wikipedia), a long-time favorite way of hiding messages; however, this is apparantly an unpublished version of the cipher, since some combinations are not in Bacon's public alphabet. The letter pattern looks like this, however (i.e. which letters are repeated and where and which letters are not repeated at all):

12345 673(repeats 3rd letter, so the 3rd letter in the message is repeated)38 9(10)(11)(10)(12) 5(12)9(13)1 (the parentheses are there to avoid confusion when there are two digits in the number)

STEP 3: It is important to know that anagrams were a primary form of cryptography in Bacon's day (see wikipedia). Thus, when we produce the following gibbberish through simple monoalphabetic substitution (see wikipedia)...:

hltreknttoaswsieiafh

STEP 4: We can guess that it is in fact an anagram, and not gibberish. Rearranging the letters and using an "s" as a stop(period), we get.....

"I know the earth is flat."

/s

• This solution actually works; the "/s" is because I pretty much pulled it out of my rear end, not pi. That and I'm not a flat-earther. – Brandon_J Dec 28 '18 at 21:31
• Holy sh$\cdot\cdot$ – Mr Pie Apr 8 '19 at 14:51

Does this count?:

Pi music (link only sorry due to being a tune)