As near as I could tell from Dr. Arroway, the aliens that she claimed to have contacted had discovered proof of the existence of God in some strings of digits embedded in irrational numbers. Not the gods that I had met, but a full-blown omnipotent Creator.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that some very intelligent mathematicians think those irrational numbers are normal, with every possible finite string of digits included in them somewhere. If that's the case, and this was what those aliens took for proof of a Creator... well, they were just as human as us, at least in that way.
(EDITED to include feedback)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
I didn't have the heart to tell her that some very intelligent mathematicians think those irrational numbers are normal, with every possible finite string of digits included in them somewhere. If that's the case, and this was what those aliens took for proof of a Creator... well, they were just as human as us, at least in that way.
(EDITED to include feedback)
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012