On 2012-04-29, David Wilson <davidwwilson@comcast.net> wrote:
This message gives me pause, though. The poster makes it sound as if pi^4 + pi^5 = e^6 was already circulating and debunked several times over, only 3 days after Frederiksen's post. Not that this disproves that Frederiksen was the discoverer, but it raises the possibility that Frederiksen was simply parroting an already circulating curiosity (which might also explain why Frederiksen never claimed authorship or apparently said anything more about the subject after this thread).
Yes, I agree. Just having those couple messages by Soren Frederiksen isn't enough to convince me, but it's a good lead. I used the good version of Google Groups to search for all messages with that name, and this is the first: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf-lovers/msg/faf9e99459199126 Notice that he starts the message with "This is the first time I'm posting, so hopefully this will work properly ...", so it's his first USENET message. Note also the lack of the equation in his sig. Messages posted slightly later, like this one: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf-lovers/msg/028a0de3a609007e also lack the formula. They're talking about digit patterns, in the context of Sagan's book "Contact" (on which the later movie was based), so the conversation touches on statistics of the digits of pi and what would constitute a "message". Within that context the pi^4+pi^5=e^6 formula has a mystical "put there by the divine creator" appeal to it, similar to what they were talking about (and which makes more sense if you've read the book. The Pi sub-plot was omitted from the movie.) To perform searches, use http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=& and note that it won't work if you attempt to sort by date. -- Robert Munafo -- mrob.com Follow me at: gplus.to/mrob - fb.com/mrob27 - twitter.com/mrob_27 - mrob27.wordpress.com - youtube.com/user/mrob143 - rilybot.blogspot.com