Nicholas Sze of Yahoo Finds Two-Quadrillionth Digit of Pi
gregg writes "A researcher has calculated the 2,000,000,000,000,000th digit of pi — and a few digits either side of it. Nicholas Sze, of technology firm Yahoo, determined that the digit — when expressed in binary — is 0."
Well, the 243,000,500,000,000,000,002th digit of pi is "4".
Go on, prove me wrong.
*facepalm* So that's 9 in decimal, right?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
...move along people, nothing to see here.
He'll definitely get some action for sure!
Good to know they're putting those idle datacenters to good use. It's not like Yahoo has any real users anymore to generate load.
I think it would be neater to be done in binary. Or perhaps convert it to ASCII to see if pi actually represents a story of some kind that is being told to us by the aliens.
"To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
"Interestingly, by some algebraic manipulations, (our) formula can compute pi with some bits skipped; in other words, it allows computing specific bits of pi," Mr Sze explained to BBC News.
So why don't they just use their formula to compute the last digit of Pi already?
That would be the rational approach. Who cares about the two quadrillionth digit??
Geez, even I could have gotten it right half the time.
Word. This discovery is useless. Now, if he'd managed to prove that the digit, when expressed in binary, is 2... That'd be something to shout about!
the digit — when expressed in binary — is 0.
Jeez, what are the odds of that?
It is, but it's encoded in UTF-35, not ASCII.
Amazing, so is Yahoo's profit projections within five years!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Netcraft.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Well, it will help to date the story to this year, compared to stories that run in 2012 that will say 'defunct technology firm yahoo ...'
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
They asked some autistic dude who has it memorised to 3 quadrillion digits and he said "yes"
It's actually 13 orders of magnitude less significant than the 200th.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I bet he googled the answer...
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
The computation took 23 days on 1,000 of Yahoo's computers, racking up the equivalent of more than 500 years of a single computer's efforts.
And before answering, the computer paused and said, "You're not going to like it ..."
Or perhaps convert it to ASCII to see if pi actually represents a story of some kind that is being told to us by the aliens.
You know that's the revelation at the end of a sci-fi novel by a certain revered astronomer, right?
Say 'gain?
The Admin and the Engineer
That's a rather ... odd ... reaction to my post. You're hoping to eliminate my superior genes so we don't wipe you out?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
A 'mine's bigger' sort of competition,
Would that be diameter or circumference?
Have gnu, will travel.
point? there is just one point when you're a pi value researcher.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
1.Convert PI to binary
2.Interpret binary PI as ASCII
3.Search for the complete works of William Shakespeare
4.Once found, use number to produce compact William Shakespeare quote generator.