Researcher Breaks Pi Calculation Record

Then, suddenly the numbers became all zeros...

Then, something else happened... Something unimaginable...

and they left all that out of the movie

OK, you're killing me. Where did this come from? I remember reading it a long while back. Could it have been from the novel "Quarantine"?

Contact, the creator put messages in the constants, that's what Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway "father" tells her about when asked what they believe in before being sent back to Earth.

Thank, kwcharlie. Good novel, kind of a spooky idea.

Off topic - but commenting on your tag line:

You know manhole covers don't have to be round, right? Any of the Reulaux Polygons would also work, i.e., they would not fall through the hole no matter how they are dropped. They are all shapes of constant width.

Reuleaux

It occurs to me that the perimeter ('circumference') of a reuleaux triangle is P = pi × W, where W is the width (same formula as for the circle, using its width = its diameter).

Is there any PRACTICAL use for knowing Pi to trillions of places, really?

I'd think a billion or two would get you in the ballpark.

The only practical value is an honest version of bragging rights. The obvious bragging right of how many digits have been calculated has no practical value. How quickly your machine and algorithm calculated this transcendental number to a fixed number of digits is a great benchmark of machine and coding. When one also considers the apparent low cost of the hardware this implies an impressive result.

Except the article mentions nothing about time to calculate or cost. They don't even claim that they compared their result with an earlier calculation. For all we know they might be less accurate than 22/7 for a value of pi. Might as well put the machine into an endless loop to blink a light and increment a counter. Then wait for failure and claim the most steps taken.

That's what I thought.

Finally !!

I can figure out exactly how much water is in my pool !!

Well, now maybe they can figure out if they really have discovered the God particle!

Once you hit Plank length at ~1.616 x10-35 do you really need any further resolution being you are already well below sub atomic particle dimensions already?

Well we like to divide our pies evenly but really....this seems a bit too much

Guys,

One of the most practical uses of an extremely accurate value of Pi is to to assist secure communications by setting secure codes across distances.

Both sender and receiver need the same machine with the same software and an agreement in advance to use, say, the 33 billionth number with an agreed sequence length.

Not many people have that hardware and software but it can be done; it is apparently easier to calculate the, say, 33 billionth digit than it is to calculate the string of digits to that point.

I bought the book on this topic quite recently, have filed it and cannot find it at this point in time. It needs to be entered into my Book List so it can be referenced!

If anyone wants the reference, please PM me and I will send when I find.

Obviously there are many other uss of jointly known sets of numbers which are apparently pseudorandom but are in fact numbers from a known sequence.

Have fun

Sleepy

Yes, there are uses for accurate reproductions of pseudo-random number sequences, particularly in cryptography. That is not what this article claims to be doing.

Redfred,

Agree, I only added the comment because you will always get people asking what the hell is the relevance of more digits of PI, or larger amd larger Prime Numbers.

Enjoy

Sleepy