Pi disaster

The Pi disaster is a major crime against mathematical constants, causing the death of 342,509,221 people. It usually manifests itself as a defect in a program written by Axiom Antics for a set of human logic gates.

History

In an infamous case of failure, Axiom Antics put an audience of several hundred thousand people into a hypnotic trance, converting them to human logic gates (nonfiction).

Axiom Antics then programmed the gates to calculate pi "to the last digit" without any error handling for Halting problems.

Subsequent investigation using forensic iterology explained the Pi disaster in considerable detail, but also resulted in the death of four investigators, permanent insanity of the support staff, and possible Evaporation of Universal Constants.

The Pi disaster occurred as a cascading series of failures.

First, Axiom Antics applied an unprecedentedly high level of hypnotic trance, as the number of gates far exceeded anything previously attempted.

Second, the hypnotic trance affected Axiom Antics itself. Prosecutors later charged that Axiom Antics drank cheaply-programmed Toffoli Rad before programming the gates, but this has yet to be proven.

Third -- and fatally -- Axiom Antics introduced a Software defect (nonfiction) into the gates. The resulting infinite loop caused the gates to divert all of their biological energy to calculating the digits of pi.

Finally, Axiom Antics failed to notice that nearly 342,509,222 had died -- not until 342,509,221 had died, at which point Axiom Antics patched the software, terminating the loop.

Asclepius Myrmidon provided volunteer medical and post-traumatic counseling services after the Pi disaster.

Dalton Trumbo wrote a prize-winning series about the Pi disaster.

In the News

• 

  1560: Mathematician and fencer Ludolph van Ceulen uses Gnomon algorithm techniques to forecast the Pi disaster.

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  Asclepius Myrmidon provides emergency medical services after Pi disaster.

Fiction cross-reference

• Asclepius Myrmidon
• Axiom Antics
• Evaporation of universal constants
• Extract of Radium
• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• Shape theft
• Toffoli Rad
• Dalton Trumbo
• Turing friend

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Failure (nonfiction)
• Human logic gate (nonfiction)
• Musical electroplating ensemble (nonfiction)
• Pi (nonfiction)
• Software defect (nonfiction)
• Software patch (nonfiction)
• Volunteer human logic gate (nonfiction)