Pi Has Your Number

Use a touchscreen to search for any number hidden in the first 3 million digits of pi.

The digits of pi go on forever, without ever falling into a repeating pattern. Therefore any sequence of numbers you can think of—your ZIP code, your birthday, your phone number—are bound to appear in the digits of pi sooner or later.

This exhibit features a 12-foot long poster containing over three million tiny digits of pi. A computer at the exhibit lets you look up the position of any number sequence while a sliding magnifier can be positioned for you to see the sequence for yourself.

The odds are pretty good that your six digit birthday is somewhere on this poster. But to have an equally good chance of finding your 10-digit phone number you'd need 4 billion digits–and the poster would need to stretch all the way across the Bay to Oakland.