The mathematical concept of Pi can now play Pokemon, but still can't find the first gym after 16,000 hours of trying

Nov. 14, 2023

The first 6.3 million digits don’t have the winning formula, but there’s infinitely more to go

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Pi - the number, shown by the symbol π - has often been said to contain the complete works of Shakespeare within its infinitely flowing digits. Mathematicians still don’t know if that’s actually true, but after 759 days, one streamer has proven that Pi contains a 16,000 hour Pokemon Sapphire player that keeps getting stuck in the starting town.

The theory goes that, since Pi contains an infinite series of seemingly random digits, if you calculate it far enough it should be seen to containeverypossible sequence of numbers, including strings that would translate to the works of Shakespeare, your childhood diary, or a recipe for a really good apple pie. Even after calculating Pi to 100 trillion digits, mathematicians still can’t prove that the distribution of numbers is truly random, so this idea does remain purely theoretical.

I think the most fascinating bit of all this is the fact that a consistent little community has popped up around the stream. It’s got around 80 viewers as I write this, many of them casually chatting about Pi’s progress, or lack thereof. TheYouTubeVODs of the stream often reach over 1,000 views, which is… a lot, for a series of 12 hour videos featuring a number causing random button presses in a GBA Pokemon game.

Just remember -AI is making only slightly better progress at playing Pokemonthan a random sequence of numbers.

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