A computer scientist in France just broke the world record for calculating pi. Previously, the world record for calculating the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was 2.6 trillion decimal places. The new record, set by Fabrice Bellard and his PC, is 2.7 trillion decimal places. For you non-math geeks out there, that's 100,000,000,000 more decimal places than before, for a total of 270,000,000,000 decimal places. I usually can't remember pi any further than 3.14.
And what did he discover? That so far, yep, it's still an irrational number.
Now, seriously, why on earth do we need to know the value of pi with that much precision? Of course, as computer nerds usually do, he did state some vague applications for it. But honestly, I think the thrust of his motivation was simply in the challenge. It's the old,
"Why did you climb the mountain?"
"Because it was there."
And really, that's reason enough. The simple, pure joy of discovery, taking on a challenge, accomplishing new heights, is what enflames and sustains the passion of the soul. It separates humans from other animals. Any beast will explore new places for prosaic purposes: new sources of food, water, and shelter, safety from predators, or to remove oneself from competitors. Only humans explore for exploration's sake. (At this point I expect Iggy to contradict me with an obscure example from the animal kingdom).
So go ahead, feel free to explore, learn, challenge yourself, or set life goals that make others look at you quizzically. It's there. Climb it.
4 comments:
Points well taken. I agree that life should be a continual childlike search both mental and physical. Since I like to hike I believe, "We don't stop hiking because we grow old, we grow old because we stop hiking." U-Cor
Dagney, her is a Wikipedia article on "pi" - quite interesting.
I'll add it to the list of topics for Skeptics for this year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi
As an animal myself I cannot find any contradictions :o) I think the pure pleasure humans derive from simple things (to them) like fishing, reading a book, walking a dog, jogging, watching a sunset is pretty much all we need. Of course, then you can add prayer, meditation, stimulating conversations at BlackDog every Saturday 7 p.m. (you should have come yesterday - topic was Faith and Reason, are they incompatible?)
My dog plays with her ball and thrusts her toys around just for the sheer pleasure of it. Surely, she is not doing it because she is not happy - she has her own routine.
On a serious side of animals we'll be having a talk one day "Do dolphins and dogs go to heaven? - Are animals self aware and moral?"
Did I say I was not going to drive a point with animals? Oh, well. I still cannot explain to my dog the value of pi.
The ariticle mentioned the Chudnovsky brothers. They were one of the very first people to build a supercomputer in their apartment with just pc parts. I think the movie "Pi" is loosely based on them.
I have also heard that pi is pointless beyond the 47th decimal point, for that would be an accuracy of something like one molecule in the entire universe.
A group of bobcats in Canada started to build a moon rocket, but they lost interest when they realized they had the blueprints of Apollo 13. So instead, they just killed a moose and ate it.
Post a Comment