What's the point of reading aloud the digits of the golden mean and recording the whole damn thing?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

https://librivox.org/golden-mean-to-5000-digits-by-jerry-bonnell-and-robert-nemiroff/

LibriVox is otherwise pretty normal, but this has me puzzled. The CD (!) case insert says: “Read by Justin Barrett, braindouche, Cow Nose the 50 Pound Cat, Sibella Denton, Esther, and Andrew Lebrun. Total running time: 00:54:13.” Seems insane to me. Why put the whole reading on a CD? Why 5000 digits? Why are there no chapters? What if they made a mistake? Did they double-check the result? Who needs any of that anyway?

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iii@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s a good number. What number would you’ve chosen instead?

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- FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Tau. because i like pi and 2 pi is always better than one.
  
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litchralee@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My guess is that reading tomes like this is useful as a vocal exercise and can be a way of “getting one’s name out” for aspiring vocal talent. After all, what better way to showcase voice work on a resume than to point to examples online? As for the exact tome, it doesn’t really matter for this purpose but might as well also contribute to the wealth of human media.

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- iii@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The voice actors in this case were NASA employees.
  
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  - Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Hmm, maybe this was considered for putting onto the Voyager Golden Record or something like it…?
    
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Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
At the risk of calling someone’s work boring: Might help people fall asleep?

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HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Well, you can use the books as a form of random number generator. Maybe this can work for the blind in a much, much more compact form than a braille book (which, if you’ve never seen are fucking huge)? I don’t know. I’m sure whoever buys it has some reason they want it.

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