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Google Smashes the World Record For Calculating Digits of Pi (wired.co.uk)
Pi just got bigger. Google's Compute Engine has calculated the most digits of pi ever, setting a new world record. From a report: Emma Haruka Iwao, who works in high performance computing and programming language communities at Google, used infrastructure powered by Google Cloud to calculate 31.4 trillion digits of pi. The previous world record was set by Peter Trueb in 2016, who calculated the digits of pi to 22.4 trillion digits. This is the first time that a publicly available cloud software has been used for a pi calculation of this magnitude.
Iwao became fascinated by pi when she learned about it in math class at school. At university, one of her professors, Daisuke Takahashi, was the record holder for the most-calculated digits of pi using a supercomputer. Now, y-cruncher is the software of choice for pi enthusiasts. Created in 2009, y-cruncher is designed to compute mathematical constants like pi to trillions of digits. "You need a pretty big computer to break the world record," says Iwao. "But you can't just do this with a computer from a hardware store, so people have previously built custom machines." In September of 2018, Iwao started to consider how the process of calculating even more digits of pi would work technically. Something which came up quickly was the amount of data that would be necessary to carry out the calculations, and store them -- 170 terabytes of data, which wouldn't be easily hosted by a piece of hardware. Rather than building a whole new machine Iwao used Google Cloud.
Iwao used 25 virtual machines to carry out those calculations. "But instead of clicking that virtual machine button 25 times, I automated it," she explains. "You can do it in a couple of minutes, but if you needed that many computers, it could take days just to get the next ones set up." Iwao ran y-cruncher on those 25 virtual machines, continuously, for 121 days.
Iwao became fascinated by pi when she learned about it in math class at school. At university, one of her professors, Daisuke Takahashi, was the record holder for the most-calculated digits of pi using a supercomputer. Now, y-cruncher is the software of choice for pi enthusiasts. Created in 2009, y-cruncher is designed to compute mathematical constants like pi to trillions of digits. "You need a pretty big computer to break the world record," says Iwao. "But you can't just do this with a computer from a hardware store, so people have previously built custom machines." In September of 2018, Iwao started to consider how the process of calculating even more digits of pi would work technically. Something which came up quickly was the amount of data that would be necessary to carry out the calculations, and store them -- 170 terabytes of data, which wouldn't be easily hosted by a piece of hardware. Rather than building a whole new machine Iwao used Google Cloud.
Iwao used 25 virtual machines to carry out those calculations. "But instead of clicking that virtual machine button 25 times, I automated it," she explains. "You can do it in a couple of minutes, but if you needed that many computers, it could take days just to get the next ones set up." Iwao ran y-cruncher on those 25 virtual machines, continuously, for 121 days.
You can get even more precision: 10 (in pi base)
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Back in college, I jokingly sent my friend 1 million digits of PI. This was on a VAX terminal college e-mail system and he didn't know how to delete the message without scrolling through the entire thing. So he sat there hitting page down over and over until he reached the bottom. For some reason, he didn't seem to appreciate the practical joke.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So if her last digit was wrong, how far off would she be on a calculation of the diameter of the observable universe?
Does pi have any meaning when you get details beyond the Planck length?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"But you can't just do this with a computer from a hardware store...
I always get my computers from Home Depot.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's waiting for the copyright lawyers from Hollywood to make a claim.
After all, the binary data from every move that was ever made and ever will be made is already in the number pi.
Actually, if you would describe the whole universe in binary format -or decimal if you wish-, it's already in the number pi. Somewhere.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
Google did nothing other than sell the environment. Maybe the headline should say Intel because it may have built the actual hardware, or Cisco because its switches were used somewhere?
Remind me of the time I drop rock on friend Grog. He not like rock smash him. He beat me with club. Then saber tooth tiger eat whole family. Me laugh last!
You mean 1.0 (in base pi), right?
If it is an algorithm calculating PI, it would be mathematically provably correct. This formula (there are more than one) calculate PI to arbitrary precision. All that is left to question is the correctness of the implementation.
Since PI has been independently calculated by so many different implementations over time, the initial digits of them can be cross checked for correctness. One early effort, was it in the 1950s maybe(?) calculated PI to 2000 places, and that was called a 'stunt' to show off a computer. If other implementations get the same first 2000 places, can we assume their implementation of whatever formula they use is correct?
Maybe you're saying something different: that someone could commit fraud by stopping generating PI and then substituting a random number generator. In that case, their results will disagree with the next person who tries to beat their record and it will be obvious.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
"But instead of clicking that virtual machine button 25 times, I automated it,"
She needs 170 terabytes of space across 25 computers for 121 days to produce 31.4 (Ha!) trillion digits. And she's worried about clicking a button a few times?? Hell, even I'm not that anal unless it was a trivial solution. (for a in `seq 1 25` ; do ./push ; done)
First world problems, I guess.
So in all seriousness, how do you check that? Run it again and see if it produces the same number? If there's a timing bug, it'll differ. If there's (say) a BAD timing bug, it won't; but might differ on a different machine. Or numeric coprocessor problems: One Two Three. Or cosmic rays actually flipping a bit somewhere. (ECC CPUs?) I realize this is all fun and games, but how do you know that it's actually correct? See if you can use it to successfully square the circle, in which case it's not?
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Whats the file size in terms of Firefox Send?
It it's too big, just compress it.
In terms of electricity.
Or how much would it have cost someone who doesn't work at Google.
25 servers, 121 days, 170 terabytes of data.
And then the real question, was it really WORTH it?
BlameBillCosby.com
Actually, if you would describe the whole universe in binary format -or decimal if you wish-, it's already in the number pi. Somewhere.
Can't be, because some universal constants are irrational, and therefore cannot be in another number.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Probably not, 1 in any base is 1. A number in its own base is 10. (Hence ten, in decimal, is written 10, and two, in binary, is written 10.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Seems irrational to me.
*sigh* I knew that.
[slowly turns in nerd-card]
Whats the file size in terms of Firefox Send?
It it's too big, just compress it.
And if that doesn't work, compress it again!
Do you have ESP?
Observing a holiday changes it.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
Would you say that it's irrational to do so?