HP Forum Archive 08

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Re: "99 digits of Pi"; BONUS: A 32sII, HP, Carly rant Message #1 Posted by Katie on 21 June 2002, 1:22 p.m. Initially (1995) the N'th digit of Pi calculation was given as a linear time hexadecimal algorithm. It has since been extended to any base, but not in linear time. Here's a site describing the algorithm and the history of its improvements: http://www.mathsoft.com/asolve/plouffe/plouffe.html "A History of Pi" was written by Petr Beckmann and first published in 1971. It's in its 2nd or 3rd printing (I think) and Amazon has it for around $10.

Decimal digits of PI---anyone going to try on an HP? Message #2 Posted by W. Bruce Maguire II on 22 June 2002, 4:28 p.m., in response to message #1 by Katie Hello all: Given this interesting development in the world of Pi, and given that I, personally, am only interested in DECIMAL digits of Pi, I wonder if it could be done on an HP-97? Would that be cool, or what? Having a printing calculator like the 97 just chugging along and occasionally spitting out the next decimal digit of Pi! Has anyone (here) done enough investigation of this new decimal-digit approach to know if we could do this on an HP? Katie? Bruce.

Re: Decimal digits of PI---anyone going to try on an HP? Message #3 Posted by Katie on 23 June 2002, 9:03 p.m., in response to message #2 by W. Bruce Maguire II It would be "cool", but I don't know of a simple enough direct-digit, decimal algorithm that would fit on a 97. And even if one could be found, so far the best decimal solutions to this problem are at least O(n^3). The 97 would likely turn to dust before you got 1000 digits printed. However 100 digits (or so) of pi printed on a 97 using a simple O(N^2) algorithm that stores all decimal digits is quite possible. In fact I started writing that on a 97 before switching to a 32SII. Maybe I should get back to it.

"A History of Pi" Message #4 Posted by Karl Schneider on 24 June 2002, 2:54 a.m., in response to message #1 by Katie Barnes & Noble produced their printing of "A History of Pi" in 1993 (ISBN 0-88029-418-3). I bought a clearance copy for $7 within the past year. Its back pages include Pi to the first 10,000 digits, from a computation to 100,265 digits on an IBM 704 mainframe in July 1961.

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