Google Bid Pi Billion Dollars For Nortel Patents

mikejuk writes "Google mystified other participants in an auction for patents last week by their choice of bids. They weren't the round regular numbers that are normally expected. After first bidding $1,902,160,540 — a reference to Brun's constant — and later bidding $2,614,972,128 for the Meissel-Mertens constant, they ended up submitting a bid for $3.14159 billion. Google ended up losing the auction — but was that a deliberate ploy?"

Comments

The deal fails when Nortel askes for exact change.

[Anonymous Coward]

The deal fails when Nortel askes for exact change.

Patents have irrational value

[tdwebste]

All these bids are irrational numbers.

I think the message is clear. Patents have irrational value.

Re:Patents have irrational value

[LeDopore]

It gets better. If Google borrowed an amount of $ with a nonzero imaginary component, through the miracle of complex number exponentiation eventually the bank would owe *them* money.

Google: Global Superpower Math Nerds

[RobotRunAmok]

This is exactly the kind of behavior I would expect from a group of guys who, once routinely stuffed into their high school lockers, have now grown up (?) to become full-fledged white cat-stroking Bond villains.

I give it another 6-9 months more of federal government inquiries and subpoenas before they dig a moat around their campus and fill it with laser-headed sharks...

Big pies

[Groo Wanderer]

That's a big piece of pi.

                -Charlie

Pi

[ukemike]

That's a nice round number.

Re:Pi

[Alex Zepeda]

I thought pie are square?

Re:CFO's glad they didn't take the next step

[SEWilco]

Google's CFO's glad they didn't take the next step after pi: tau (6.28...)

The CFO's would have been more worried at a bid for $googol.