Contact Pi

[RBG]

:o

I thought I was going flipping nuts. Or better- that I was deciphering the hidden Contact message in PI and ala 2001/Sentinel would be the Chosen One to evolve the human race to the next level.

Well, maybe I didn't believe that one a whole lot. But it became increasingly plausible when, in a mad scramble to notify the world, I couldn't find a single working phone in the place.

Let me back up a bit.

Based on Phil P's public recommendation, I read Carl Sagan's novel "Contact." Well, almost read it. Fifteen pages from the end, on page 417 of the hard cover book, I got distracted by a reference to Pi.

And as an idle mental exercise, thought I would try to work out Pi in my head to see how far I could take it without falling apart.

Well, I only got about 3 decimal points in when I was shocked to see that my Pi... 3.1428 was not working out to Carl Sagan's Pi...

There- about 3-4 paragraphs down on page 417. It reads:

"Thanks. Pi starts out 3.1415926 ..."

I triple, triple checked in my head & then ran for paper to do some old fashion long division. I just refused to believe my own simple calculations. But it always worked out 3.1428...

Surely there is no way the brilliant Carl Sagan could be wrong. No way. No chance.

Clearly that only leaves the possiblility of some kind of test by aliens from another dimension.

Cheers,
Rob BG

(Sorry if this is old news- which it must be.)

[ToSeek]

How are you calculating it? If you're working it out from the approximation 22/7, you're going to go wrong pretty quickly (and in about the way that you describe).

[daver]

Sorry, i must have mislaid my sense of humor today. Is this satire, and i completely missed the point, or do you actually think pi = 22/7?

[Digital Apprentice]

There- about 3-4 paragraphs down on page 417. It reads:

"Thanks. Pi starts out 3.1415926 ..."

I triple, triple checked in my head & then ran for paper to do some old fashion long division. I just refused to believe my own simple calculations. But it always worked out 3.1428...



What are you attempting to say?

Pi is 3.14159265358979323846... and so on, and always has been. 22/7 is merely a convenient approximation that's good enough for most rough applications.

D.

[David Hall]

Try this history of the calculation of Pi (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Pi_through_the_ages.html). Perhaps it will give you a clearer understanding of where you're slipping up. :-)

On a personal note, I've managed to get Pi memorized to 46 decimal places. (The last dozen were especially hard). Only a few more to 50.

[RBG]

:oops:

Uh, yeah I knew that. Of course everybody knows that 22/7 is just an approx. Except perhaps two REAL dumb guys I know. I just wanted to publicly humilate one of them.

Bad RBG

[RBG]

I can't even humilate without humiliating. Reading, writing, arithmetic- I've just about covered it all now.

R

[ToSeek]

Try this history of the calculation of Pi (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Pi_through_the_ages.html). Perhaps it will give you a clearer understanding of where you're slipping up. :-)

On a personal note, I've managed to get Pi memorized to 46 decimal places. (The last dozen were especially hard). Only a few more to 50.

Good going - I'm only up to 31.

So how many digits would you need before you could calculate the circumference of the universe to an accuracy less than the Planck distance? I figure that's the ultimate touchstone of a "useful" value of pi.

[RBG]

As penance, I have forced myself to memorize Pi to 27 places:

3. 1415 92 6535 8979 323 846264 3383...

RBG

[Glom]

Maclurin is the way. I believe that Maclurin expansions are what calculators use for trigs and stuff.

[Jocke]

[Almost OT]
I'm going to push myself in here and link to a wallpaper featuring Pi (http://wab-fanart.netfirms.com/pic_17.shtml). Although I doubt you'll get the joke...

[Glom]

Something about eggheads?

Eggs used in a pie?

[Jocke]

Not even close... That egg-like characters favorite food is................................. Pie (http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/pie.htm)! :D

Hehe...

[Glom]

Well that large one has certainly been scrambled....

... his brains waves by a huge electro-magnetic that is.

[pi is exactly 3]

I have found software that will help you caluculate pi to many many decimals. It is quite hard to find a website that will give you many decimals of pi. they just explain all the history of calculating it. here is Pi to 100 digits which is more that computer calculators go to. it is to be read across, not by columbs.

PI=3.

1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510
5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679

:lol:

[kilopi]

It is quite hard to find a website that will give you many decimals of pi.
Here's a million places (http://newton.ex.ac.uk/research/semiconductors/theory/collabs/pi/pi6.txt), no problem.

[pi is exactly 3]

how did you find this? though a google search. or did you just know the site? Thanks anyway. i already have the software that calculates it. In school i am going to try and write a code in turing that will calculate it. :wink:

[kilopi]

It was in the first link returned when I googled on +"pi"+"decimal places"

[David Hall]

You can download even larger sets of pi here in big zip files if you really want to.
http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/projects/ISC/data/pi.html

I found them on the PI pages (http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/pi/index.html). Some of the links might even net you more digits.

Oh, and I can now safely say I've memorized the next 5 digits myself, bringing me up to 51 decimal places. I had to wait a week or so to be sure I really had it memorized before posting, but they were much easier to remember than the last dozen.

My eventual goal is to breach the century mark.