[ELI5] What’s the benefit of calculating Pi to now 62.8 trillion digits?
In: Mathematics
I don’t actually think there is a tangible benefit to this particular calculation, but I can say, from a computer science background, that having records of very expensive calculations is EXTREMELY useful in order to reduce the overhead for those computations in future. Hash Tables or arrays that hold fixed answers are often MUCH faster to access than manually calculating the answer. So say, maybe 100 years down the road, if we ever need an accurate answer like this, we don’t have to worry about whether it’s “feasible” to calculate it or not, because we have the constant answer. Maybe this particular number isn’t necessary, but the idea that people WANT to calculate large values can have it’s merits in other fields where they need speed or just need the answer because the calculation is beyond reasonable to calculate real time during a specific task.
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