All of life in pi? [Reflections]

MANY YEARS AGO, WHILE HAVING DINNER WITH AN eminent mathematician, I mentioned a scene regarding the number pi in Carl Sagan's novel, Contact. A scientist from Earth (Jodie Foster in the movie) visits a distant planet and learns that the aliens there have calculated pi out to many places. Very far out in the number's expansion the decimal digits turn to a very long string of ones and zeros–a messa...