QUANTICO / WASHINGTON / SOMEWHERE IN NUMBER THEORY — It is Pi Day. March 14. The day the mathematical community celebrates the most famous irrational number in existence — a number that has no end, follows no pattern, and cannot be captured in a simple fraction no matter how long you try.
Douglas Allegedly has been covering the Iran war’s stated objectives for fourteen days. On this, the fourteenth day, which is also Pi Day, which is also the day after the president bombed Kharg Island and posted about it at night, Douglas would like to submit a formal observation:
The war objectives are pi.
Not literally. Metaphorically. With mathematical precision.
The Properties Of Pi, Applied
Pi is irrational. An irrational number cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers. It cannot be written as a clean fraction — not 22/7, not any simple numerator over denominator. The war objectives cannot be expressed as a clean fraction either. The numerator — what the war is for — has been: nuclear program elimination; missile program destruction; proxy network degradation; naval elimination; regime change; not regime change; getting an agreeable new leader; the new leader having been selected without input; Kharg Island; not the oil infrastructure on Kharg Island, per a capitalized NOT; the Strait of Hormuz remaining open; and this morning, also possibly talks, depending on the terms. The denominator — what constitutes success — has not been filed. You cannot write an irrational number as a fraction. You cannot write the war’s objectives as a fraction either. The math is consistent.
Pi is non-repeating. No sequence of digits in pi ever repeats in a regular pattern. Each new decimal place is distinct from the ones before it. Each new week of the war introduces a distinct justification that does not repeat the one before it in a regular pattern. Week one: nuclear program. Week two: “very complete, pretty much” plus Kharg Island. The sequence has not cycled back. It has continued. This is the non-repeating property. The decimal places of the objectives keep coming. No one has found the repeat yet.
Pi is transcendental. A transcendental number is not the root of any polynomial equation with rational coefficients. It exists outside normal algebraic structures. The war’s exit strategy is transcendental in the same sense: it cannot be derived from the equations currently available. Input the objectives, the timeline, the new supreme leader, the Kharg Island strike, the “talks possible, only possible” statement, and the “very complete, pretty much” characterization — solve for exit. The equation has no rational root. The exit strategy is transcendental. Ferdinand von Lindemann would recognize the shape of this immediately.
Pi is infinite. Computers have calculated pi to over 100 trillion digits without finding an end. The Senate Armed Services Committee has been briefed on the war and has attended classified sessions and has emerged, in Senator Warren’s words, still unable to confirm “the reasons we entered this war, the goals we’re trying to accomplish, and the methods for doing that.” The classified briefings are the first 100 trillion digits. The end has not been located. The computation continues.
The Pi Approximations, And How They Map
Mathematicians throughout history have sought simple approximations for pi when precision was not required. The most famous is 22/7 — close enough for basic calculations, clearly not the real number, useful in practice while being technically wrong.
The war has its own approximations. “4 to 5 weeks” is 22/7 — a workable estimate, close enough for initial planning, technically wrong in ways that are becoming apparent. “Very complete, pretty much” is the π ≈ 3.14 approximation — accurate to two decimal places, stops short of all the digits that come after, functional for press conferences and insufficient for anything requiring more precision. “A little glitch” is π ≈ 3 — the roughest usable approximation, correct about the shape of the situation, missing essentially all the information that matters, accurate at a distance and wrong up close.
No approximation has been sufficient. The real number keeps going. The Kharg Island strike last night was approximately the 15th decimal place. The number continues.
What Pi Day Asks Of Us, As A Nation At War On Pi Day
Pi Day is celebrated by eating pie. The pie is circular. The circle is the shape of a situation that goes around. Douglas Allegedly is not saying the war is going in circles. He is saying that the shape of pi, the shape of the situation, and the shape of a pie crust are all the same shape, and that this is Pi Day, and that this is the observation available to him at the current moment, fourteen days in, with the objectives still running, the decimal still extending, the end still not located.
The good news about irrational numbers, Douglas would like to note, is that they are still numbers. They are real. They exist. You can use them. You can build a bridge with pi even though you cannot write out all of pi. You can navigate a situation whose objectives are irrational as long as you have enough decimal places to work with and enough precision for the calculation at hand.
Whether fourteen decimal places is enough precision for the calculation at hand is a question Douglas is leaving for the mathematicians, the classified briefing attendees, and the people who emerge from those briefings and say “I found their answers completely and totally insufficient,” which is also, Douglas notes, a valid assessment of any approximation of pi.
Pi Day. Day 14. $103.14 a barrel. The number continues. Have some pie. It is circular. Everything is circular. That is the theorem. That is always the theorem.
Douglas Allegedly, Opinion Editor, filed this piece at 9:26 a.m. because he missed 9:26:53 by several minutes and considered that an acceptable precision. He has been covering the war’s objectives since day one and can now recite approximately fourteen decimal places from memory, none of which are the end. Confidence: 31.4%. Happy Pi Day from Supposedly News. The objectives are irrational. The number is beautiful. We are going to be fine. Probably. Eventually. The decimal will either end or it won’t, and history suggests it won’t, but history also suggests we keep calculating, so here we are.