Xref: utzoo comp.compression:198 sci.math:16341 Newsgroups: comp.compression,sci.math Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cunixf.cc.columbia.edu!cunixa.cc.columbia.edu!kasdan From: kasdan@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (John Kasdan) Subject: Re: Program for Calculating PI Message-ID: <1991Apr3.030409.1270@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Sender: usenet@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Network News) Nntp-Posting-Host: cunixa.cc.columbia.edu Reply-To: kasdan@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (John Kasdan) Organization: Columbia University References: <1991Apr3.014832.15021@linus.mitre.org> Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1991 03:04:09 GMT In article <1991Apr3.014832.15021@linus.mitre.org> bs@faron.mitre.org (Robert D. Silverman) writes: >In article avenger@wpi.WPI.EDU (Samuel Joseph Pullara) writes: >>Could someone please send me a program that will calculate PI to any >>arbitrary number of digits? Thanks in advance... > >Let me add my opinion. > >Please do NOT comply with the above request. > >If the poster wants a large number of digits [of pi], over 1 billion >have already been calculated. > >If the poster wants to know HOW it is done, he would be better off >studying the actual mathematics than by reading some computer program. >He might even then [God forbid!] learn something by writing his own >program. > >I fail to see what the poster hopes to accomplish by having someone else >hand him a black box program to compute something that has already been >done many times. All the poster would do is waste CPU time on some machine >repeating those calculations, while learning NOTHING in the process. > >On the other hand, if the user wants to know about HOW the Chudnovskys >did the calculation (using an analytic continuation of a formula of >Ramanujan), I'll be GLAD to provide that information. >Or if he wants to know how D. Bailey (et. al.) used the arithmetic-geometric >mean along with FFT multiply routines to calculate Pi to many places, I'll >be happy to provide that as well. > > I, for one, would be very happy to see Mr. Silverman post the above information. The only article on the Chudnovsky's work that I have seen is in the NAS journal, and I can't follow the details. On the other hand, I found the bc program which was posted a while ago to be fascinating. I had not realized that the algorithm was anything like that short. True, I did not understand what integral it was evaluating, nor why it worked but, as is the case with much mathematics that I see or hear, I got some sort of feeling for what was going on that might make me more receptive the next time I get a chance to learn more (which will be, I hope, in the near future when Mr. Silverman makes good on his promise.) >The above request sounds suspiciously like a homework assignment to me. >-- This sounds like paranoia to me; what kind of class could possibly assign such homework? >Bob Silverman >#include >Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730 >"You can lead a horse's ass to knowledge, but you can't make him think" /KAS John Kasdan, Columbia University School of Law "If there weren't so many people righting wrongs, there wouldn't be so many wrongs to right". H.J. Simon, Bridge in the Menagerie.