The biggest hand calculation in a century! [π Day 2024]
The biggest hand calculation in a century! [π Day 2024]
Please note down the new value of pi: 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306...
![The biggest hand calculation in a century! [Pi Day 2024]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5e004a40-a067-40cf-8eb3-f0fbb595ce46.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
I often wonder, when is the last time that pi was actually measured, and what was the precision level?
I suppose that any rounding on the measure will have a significant impact. How do scientist alway end up with the same value to thousand of digits?
It's been measured and approximated a lot of times.
To answer your question: it can be calculated/approximated mathematically, rather than by strictly measuring it.
That the problem I have about the situation. I'm thinking of a physical standard to calculated pi. Like the current kilogram sphere. Has anyone bothered to measure it's radius and circumference with high precision tools. I'm not advocating to make pi legally 3.14. Just curious. If you do the calculation based on a micrometer vs millimeter tools you surely get a different result.
Although there are measurement techniques that do appropriate pi, that's done mostly because it's interesting. Typically one calculates pi, not measures it. The calculation can't ever be completed but the more you do, the better your approximation. One method is this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz_formula_for_π
That sort of stuff is done a lot. However, you don't need all that many digits before adding more digits doesn't meaningfully affect calculations. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/3/16/how-many-decimals-of-pi-do-we-really-need/
I love Matt Parker. Will save this to watch tomorrow during lunch.