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From: herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: RE: PI
Message-ID: <2472.276cfc77@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com>
Date: 17 Dec 90 22:12:23 GMT
References: <1990Dec12.222135.336@miavx0.ham.muohio.edu> <9554@ncar.ucar.edu>
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Lines: 26

In article <9554@ncar.ucar.edu>, gary@ncar.ucar.EDU (Gary Strand) writes:
>> "brian" (brpleshek@miavx0.ham.muohio.edu)
> 
>> DOES ANYONE HAVE AN ALGORITHEM TO CALCULATE PI TO THE NTH DECIMAL
> 
>   Unless you've got a Cray and some very sophisticated algorithms, I don't
>   think you would get past the accuracy of your machine, in a timely fashion.

The multiple precision algorithms may be sophisticated, but they
are there in Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming.

You can find some interesting early work on the calculation of
large numbers by browsing through Scripta Mathematica from the
days of Jekuthiel Ginsberg's editorship.  It carried reports of
work on rotary mechanical calculators generating the first 17
Mersenne numbers, for example.  Someone helped that gentleman
calculate two numbers whose product is the 18th, or something
near it, on one of those electronic doodads.

I found Scripta Mathematica interesting recreational reading until
Ginsberg died.  When his backlog was used up it became another
of those journals that carry papers that only ten people in the
world can read.  The good issues are from the 1950s and early '60s.

dan herrick
herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com