[ELI5] What’s the benefit of calculating Pi to now 62.8 trillion digits?
In: Mathematics
Calculating pi is a well-understood problem that can be used in a couple of basic ways:
* Test (and show off) your fantastic computing system by using the same algorithm others have used to generate more digits within the same amount of time (or the same number of digits in a shorter time, which amounts to the same thing).
* Test/demonstrate a new algorithm, which could have implications for other problems.
Otherwise, actually knowing the value of pi out beyond [39 digits](https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/how-many-digits-of-pi-do-we-really-need/) is kind of pointless.
There’s really not a huge benefit to the result of the calculation, but the benefit lies in figuring out how to calculate it. Discovering new computational methods to calculate pi more and more accurately is the benefit to calculating that many digits.
This is like saying F1 cars could drive upside down in a tunnel.
There is no practical use but it needs to be done just so it can be said it was done. And someone(F1 or the manufacturer) can claim they were at the top of this at some point.
Part of it, as others said, is simply prestige. Not all mathematics is done to directly solve some “real-world” problem.
It is also a way to test supercomputers.
Just the prestige of saying that you did it. You can calculate the circumference of the visible universe to the accuracy of a hydrogen atom with 39 digits of pi.
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