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flower

Flower




Geraldo Rivera here, tonight, at summer solstice, I am in the Russian city of Murmansk, north of the Arctic Circle, enjoying days of 24 hours of sunshine. Here in Murmansk, Russian scientist Snezhana Gorski plans to honor the solstice by being the first person to compute the power of pi to 1 plus a hundred zeroes, or a googol.








GERALDO: "Snezhana, what first inspired you to a career in computer science?''

SNEZHANA: "Well. Geraldo, as a child my grandmother told me that the translation of my name meant snowflake. She told me that of all the billion snowflakes in the world, there were none alike, each was unique. I was fascinated by that fact and became determined to learn all I could of science and the natural world."

GERALDO: "What has fascinated you about the number pi, and can you explain what exactly pi is?''.

SNEZHANA: "Pi is a mathmatical calculation it is the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its' radius. The decimal representation of pi never ends or repeats, as far as we know. I am looking for a pattern a repetition, a consistency in the chaos, it would be like touching the face of God, or an explanation of why every snowflake is unique."

GERALDO: "Have you encountered any resistance from the government in your research?"

SNEZHANA: "No, here in Murmansk we are far enough away from the central government of Moscow that we are not generally bothered. I have ben able to create my supercomputer
and conduct my resarch in relative obscurity."

GERALDO: "Viewers, it is now midnight here in Murmansk and the final calculations of pi to googol, almost infinity ,is ready to be revealed. Snezhana, do you have a result?"

SNEZHANA: "Geraldo, something odd has happened, the computer is no longer processing strings of numbers, but printing a message in Cyrillic. Let me check and translate."

a few minutes pass

SNEZHANA: It says, "Behold, the lilies of the field....."