>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Roth <alan42 at mindspring.com> writes:
Alan> How many digits can you memorize? I haven't found a personal
Alan> need to go past 3.14159.
Quite true. On Linux (and most Unices), it's very easy to get a
decimal expansion of pi for as many places as you like (provided your
computer has enough virtual memory, and you have enough patience).
$ echo 'scale=400; 4*a(1)' | time bc -l
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307\
81640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058\
22317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644\
28810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610\
45432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925\
40917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116092
This took only 9 seconds on a Pentium 133 running Linux. So, why
memorize pi to so many decimal places?
But similarly, there is no need to learn to play the piano, given that
you can buy a casette tape for the masterpieces of all great pianists,
and that if you are rich enough, you can hire a pianist to play your
favourite pieces for you.
--
Lee Sau Dan $(0,X)wAV(B(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee e-mail: sdlee at csis.hku.hk |
`----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
