*What have we become?
"Google gets scientific over Nortel bids
"Google's failed efforts last week to secure Nortel's 4G patent portfolio saw the search giant make a number of seemingly random bids that in reality displayed a high degree of science. A report in The Guardian notes that at one point it bid US$3.14159 billion - a billion dollars times pi. At other points in the auction, in which Google was ranged against a six-strong consortium including Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry maker RIM and Sony, the search engine company offered other amounts - US$1,902,160,540 and US$2,614,972,128 - which mathematicians will recognise as Brun's constant (the number obtained by adding the reciprocals of the odd twin primes) and the Meissel-Mertens constant, another prime-related number. Other bids from Google included the distance between the earth and the sun. Google's bids were in vain, as it was beaten by a US$4.5 billion bid from the consortium..."
