Carl Sagan popularized the idea, in his novel CONTACT, that PI, 3.14...may contain a message from God.
Click here for the Wikipedia article for CONTACT
And this is the trailer for the movie, both give an entertaining explanation of cryptology, although the movie leaves out the finale of the discovery of the message encoded in π.
This has been taken seriously by the scientific community and searches and statistical analyses have been applied. There is the famous FEYNMAN POINT, named after physicist Richard Feynman which is a statistically unlikely string of the same number, and indicates something is going on, but what?
Now, this is standard cryptography, where you have a string of numbers and the supposition of an embedded code, and the first hurdle is to find the subset in the string that contains the embedded information. The fact that PI is an infinite string makes this practically impossible, such codes, which are actually used in espionage and transmitted by NUMBERS STATIONS are UNCRACKABLE.
THERE IS NO ALGORITHM THAT CAN BE APPLIED YOU MUST HAVE A KEY.
THE KEY PROVES THE CODE IS THERE AND THE CODE PROVES THE KEY IS THERE.
Now, I say PROVES THE KEY IS THERE, because the key is also kept secret and for transmission to the party expected to use the code may also be in code, such a instructions embedded in a story.
A NUMERIC CODE CAN ALSO TAKE AT LEAST THREE FORMS.
1. It can be purely numeric, such transmitting coordinates like latitude and longitude. Here is an example from the movie about Nobel prize winner JOHN FORBS NASH who developed Game Theory and NASH EQUILIBRIUMS. Some people see things in numbers others don't, but those things are there.
The primary, or simplest, way to identify a pure numeric code is equidistant redundancy. That is to say the number set is repeated, additionally, this may done with self reference.
For example, imagine that somewhere in PI you found 314 separated by three hundred and fourteen numbers and then 314 again, and then this repeats again so that you have 314, three times, equidistantly separated by three hundred and fourteen numbers. That would CLEARLY BE A CODED MESSAGE.
Or suppose you have string of numbers 1-100 in order, how many times would you expect to see the sequence 314? Between the the 2 and the 5 obviously but what if it occurs more?
2. It can be alpha numeric, where the specified numbers are associated with letters and spell out words.
These often use equidistant spacing or matrices.
For example, suppose you have the string of numbers 304030401, you draw a 3*3, Tic Tac Toe, style matrix and begin at top left filling in numbers around the edge and ending with the 1 in the center, so that you now can see the pattern with 3-1-4.
3. It can be graphic, when arranged in a particular way the numbers create a picture, as Sagan used in the book CONTACT where the lead character found a sequence of numbers that when placed in a matrix drew a circle.
AND IT CAN BE COMBINATIONS OF ALL THREE.
So, again, you can see that finding such a message, unless it's ABSOLUTELY OBVIOUS and VERY EARLY IN THE SET without the KEY is impossible.
HOWEVER, there is a reason to suspect that some such message is there BECAUSE we have religious claims for a known God which are stated in alphanumeric languages such as HEBREW and GREEK.
3-1-4 are the letters G-A/O-D in Hebrew דאג, and Greek. This is the English word GOD, I don't know that Greek has a word spelled gamma alpha delta, but Hebrew does have a word spelled gimmel daleth, and daleth gimmel, the aleph can be placed in the center, the Hebrew also reads right to left and in Hebrew DAG means fish.
Now, this is NOT a proof that there is a coded message in PI, BUT it is suspicious. Additionally the scientific approach to the approach to the Bible Code as originally peer reviewed published in the journal STATISTICAL SCIENCE has not been debunked. Moreover none of the debunkers I have heard have any mathematical or cryptographic background.
The evidence which is supported from the Bible Code is that it's not like other texts not only in claims made by it's plain text, but in the construction of the text itself. It's not necessary to understand the message encoded in the decimal expansion of PI π but it does help explain why one might look if one considers the possibility of a God who created the heavens and the earth.
THE ABOVE IS A SHORT SIX MINUTE TUTORIAL TO REVIEW THE NUMBERS IN PI AND SEE THE MESSAGE
