Gene Wirchenko:
>>> You monster! Now you have me wondering what the longest
>>> palindrome in the first 100,000 digits of pi is.
Mark Brader:
Eric Sosman:
> Sounds about right to me. A ten-digit palindrome must start with
> five digits ABCDE, then continue with E (probability roughly 1/10),
> D (1/10), C (1/10), B (1/10), A (1/10), so the likelihood of the EDCBA
> continuation is about 1e-5.
You're right, of course. I was only thinking about the observed rate
of other palindromes in the first million digits, and not about the
probabilitistic reasons for that.
In particular, it didn't occur to me that 10-digit and 11-digit
palindromes have the same probability of 1e-5, which fits with them
occurring about equally often in the first million digits -- but it
also means it's, shall we say, slightly surprising that there isn't
also an 11-digit palindrome in the first 100,000 digits.
--
Mark Brader | "The only thing required for the triumph of darkness
Toronto | is for good men not to call Hydro."
m...@vex.net | --Michael Wares