– Can Pi be calculated in another numeral system (base?)

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When Pi is calculated in decimal you get a never ending remainder. Is this simply a quirk of the decimal system that wouldn’t exist if we were born with 12 fingers instead of 10?

What would happen if your used hexadecimal or unidecimal to find the value of pi. Is there a way to find a theorical base system which would produce a whole number for pi. Like base 42, for example?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

No. Pi is irrational. It cannot be represented by the ratio of two integers. That holds regardless of what base number system you are using. Changing the base would determine whether or not a rational number would terminate or repeat, but it does not have any special effect on irrational numbers.

Pi is also “transcendental” which means that it’s not the root of a rational number either (it is not like the square root of two).

Although the numerical base does not matter, you did bring it up, so I figured it would be cool to point out that one of the [best ways of calculating large numbers of digits of pi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey%E2%80%93Borwein%E2%80%93Plouffe_formula) is actually designed to work best in base-16.

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