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Article: Japan Pi Value Calculation Earns Record
- Article from:
- AP Online
- Article date:
- December 7, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Associated Press. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Associated Press. (Hide copyright information)
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TOKYO (AP) _ To most people, it's a funny-looking Greek letter that
has something to do with circles. To Professor Yasumasa Kanada, however,
pi is an obsession.
Kanada and a team of researchers set a new world record by calculating
the value of pi to 1.24 trillion places, project team member Makoto
Kudo said Friday. The previous record, set by Kanada in 1999, was
206.158 billion places.
Figuring out pi to much more than about 1,000 decimal places serves
little purpose in math or engineering, but researchers say it helps
push computing power to a new level and can test the accuracy of supercomputers.
"It's an enormous feat of computing _ not only for the sheer ...