New Pi Computation Record Using a Desktop PC

hint3 writes "Fabrice Bellard has calculated Pi to about 2.7 trillion decimal digits, besting the previous record by over 120 billion digits. While the improvement may seem small, it is an outstanding achievement because only a single desktop PC, costing less than $3,000, was used — instead of a multi-million dollar supercomputer as in the previous records."

Comments

Re:Verification

[David Jao]

I didn't read the article, only the summery but it made me wonder.

Do they verify these numbers somehow? Anyone can write down a series of a numbers and claim it's a specific sequence.

Not saying these numbers aren't correct, just a thought.

Perhaps this is why you should read the article. The press release answers this question directly.

The binary result was verified with a formula found by the author with the Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe algorithm which directly gives the n'th hexadecimal digits of Pi. With this algorithm, the last 50 hexadecimal digits of the binary result were checked. A checksum modulo a 64 bit prime number done in the last multiplication of the Chudnovsky formula evaluation ensured a negligible probability of error.

The conversion from binary to base 10 was verified with a checksum modulo a 64 bit prime number.

Re:One thing to say

[PinkyGigglebrain]

An answer is a reply but a reply is not always an answer.