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From: cet1@cl.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.compression,sci.math
Subject: Re: Program for Calculating PI
Message-ID: <1991Apr7.160212.7330@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Apr 91 16:02:12 GMT
References: <AVENGER.91Apr2185942@wpi.WPI.EDU> <1991Apr3.014832.15021@linus.mitre.org> <1991Apr4.132101.9623@cs.dal.ca> <1991Apr4.150053.29873@linus.mitre.org> <1991Apr5.064220.18509@dde.dk>
Reply-To: cet1@cl.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson)
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
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In article <1991Apr5.064220.18509@dde.dk> ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering) writes:
>bs@gauss.mitre.org (Robert D. Silverman) writes:
>
>>WHAT IS SO FUCKING SPECIAL ABOUT COMPUTING PI AS OPPOSED TO SOME OTHER NUMBER?
>
>You may want to read Carl Sagan's book "Contact". 

If Bob Silverman has avoided this so far, I advise him to keep it that way!
Bad for the blood pressure, especially for mathematicians.

>                                                  Computing PI plays 
>an incredibly important, even religious, role in that book.

It occurs at the end of the book, but I don't think it has `an incredibly
important role'. Anyway, the idea used is extremely jejune. 

>                                                            (And it is 
>extremely well-written!)

De gustibus non disputandum, but I could hardly agree less.

Chris Thompson
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