Carl Sagan addressed the issue of a message in pi in the book Contact:
Occasionally you'll get a few consecutive digits that are the same--4444, for example-- but not more than you'd expect statistically. Now, suppose you're running merrily through these digits and suddenly you find nothing but fours. Hundreds of fours all in a row. That couldn't carry any information, but it also couldn't be a statistical fluke. You could calculate the digits in pi for the age of the universe and, if the digits are random, you'd never go deep enough to get a hundred consecutive fours."
"You mean you could decode a picture hiding in pi and it would be a mess of Hebrew letters?"
"Sure. Big blade letters, carved in stone." He looked at her quizzically.
Slashdot Mirror
Carl Sagan addressed the issue of a message in pi in the book Contact:
Occasionally you'll get a few consecutive digits that are the same--4444, for example-- but not more than you'd expect statistically. Now, suppose you're running merrily through these digits and suddenly you find nothing but fours. Hundreds of fours all in a row. That couldn't carry any information, but it also couldn't be a statistical fluke. You could calculate the digits in pi for the age of the universe and, if the digits are random, you'd never go deep enough to get a hundred consecutive fours."
"You mean you could decode a picture hiding in pi and it would be a mess of Hebrew letters?"
"Sure. Big blade letters, carved in stone." He looked at her quizzically.