Thinking without language?

[Lee Sau Dan ~{ at nJX6X~}]

>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Roth <alan42 at mindspring.com> writes:

    Alan> How many digits can you memorize? I haven't found a personal
    Alan> need to go past 3.14159.

Quite  true.  On  Linux (and  most Unices),  it's very  easy to  get a
decimal expansion of pi for as  many places as you like (provided your
computer has enough virtual memory, and you have enough patience).

	$ echo 'scale=400; 4*a(1)' | time bc -l
	3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307\
	81640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058\
	22317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644\
	28810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610\
	45432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925\
	40917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116092

This took  only 9  seconds on  a Pentium 133  running Linux.   So, why
memorize pi to so many decimal places?


But similarly, there is no need to learn to play the piano, given that
you can buy a casette tape for the masterpieces of all great pianists,
and that if you  are rich enough, you can hire a  pianist to play your
favourite pieces for you.


-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     $(0,X)wAV(B(Big5)                    ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ) 
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee                      e-mail: sdlee at csis.hku.hk |
`----------------------------------------------------------------------------'