Allen Esterson wrote: > On 10 January 2009 Rick Stevens wrote: > >> I recorded this show and show it sometimes in class. >> His '22,500' places of pi is billed as a memory event >> but I have wondered if he was not 'just' calculating as >> he went along. [...] >> > > There is no straightforward formula for pi that he could have used to > calculate as he went along. (Not at the rate he was going all the way > through!) See, e.g., Leibniz's formula > > pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 - 1/11 + 1/13 - 1/15 + 1/17 - 1/19... ad > infinitum >
As I recall, the legislature of Kentucky (or was it Tennessee?) attempted to "solve" this annoying problem at some point (back in the 1980s?) by simply legislating pi to be equal to 3. (To think otherwise would be to limit their constitutional liberties.) :-) And by the way, according to latest figures, 14% of American adults cannot read. That's 32 million (about the total population of Canada) who "lack basic prose literacy skill. That means they can't read a newspaper or the instruction on a bottle of pills." http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090110/sc_livescience/14percentofusadultscantread Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
