The New Longest Pi Beats Previous Record by 12.8 Trillion Digits

On Monday, a staff of Swiss information scientists introduced that their supercomputer calculated the mathematical fixed pi to a brand new size of 62.8 trillion digits, extending the fixed past its beforehand calculated finish by some 12.8 trillion digits. And to suppose I by no means even memorized 3.141592653.

According to a statement from the University of Applied Sciences of GraubUnden in Switzerland, the analysis staff knew over the weekend that they’d achieved essentially the most exact-yet summation of the fixed, which describes the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

Pi has quite a few functions, together with in development and area flight, however as David Harvey, a mathematician on the University of New South Wales in Australia, told The Guardian, “I can’t imagine any real-life physical application where you would need any more than 15 decimal places.” Other computer scientists have said that 39 digits ought to do, as a result of that specificity offers you the circumference of the observable universe to throughout the diameter of a single atom.

So why the additional 62.79… trillion digits? Thomas Keller, who managed the calculation at the University of Applied Sciences, mentioned within the launch that the up to date fixed was a form of know-how demonstration for the tremendouslaptop, which is housed on the college’s Center for Data Analytics, Visualization and Simulation.

To calculate such a big quantity requires an enormous quantity of reminiscence and processing energy. The final pi outcome took 63 terabytes of area to save lots of, and the laptop wanted 108 days and 9 hours to calculate it, practically twice as quick because the pace set by Google’s cloud in 2019. Further particulars on the specifics of the calculation could be discovered on the mission’s website.

The researchers received’t make all the quantity public till the Guinness Book of World Records certifies their outcome (whether or not Guinness has a full-time information scientist on board for this form of factor, I’m unsure). For now, we’ll should be glad with simply the ultimate 10 digits, which the staff shared. That piece of pi: 7817924264.

More: There’s a Hidden Connection Between Pi and Quantum Mechanics