Erik Max Francis <max@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Jack Tingle wrote:
>
>> Yesterday being pi-day (3/14 at approximately 1:59:27), I tried a
little
>> exercise. The most commonly used approximations for this nasty little
>> number are 3.1416, 22/7, and 355/113. Since pi is 3.14159... 3.1416 is
a
>> pretty good approximation, and only requires you to remember five
>> digits. 22/7 only needs 3 digits, while 355/113 needs a prodigious act
>> of memory on SIX whole digits [shocked muttering from audience].
>>
>> Their relative merits, taking 3.14l6 as the baseline, has 22/7 with
172x
>> the error of our baseline. Amazingly, hexadigital 355/113 has only 3.6%
>> of the error of the best 5 digit champion, 3.1416!
>
> Actually, it shouldn't be all that surprising. Consider that 3.1416 is
> just another way of writing 31416/10000. In a sense, that is an
> arbitrary denominator, one chosen just because of our predilection for
> base 10 numbers.
If you want to mess with bases, then obviously the easiest and most
accurate
approximation of pi is 1 in base-pi.
mcv.
--
Science is not the be-all and end-all of human existence. It's a tool.
A very powerful tool, but not the only tool. And if only that which
could be verified scientifically was considered real, then nearly all
of human experience would be not-real. -- Zachriel
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