How do mathematicians know that they have the correct Nth digit of pi calculated?

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I’m not sure if I worded this correctly but I’ll try to elaborate more. I know that there are formulas that can calculate pi to the Nth digit. But my question is how can we be certain that the formulas accurately calculate the Nth digit of pi when we have nothing to compare it to since pi is an irrational number that keeps on going?

For example if I discovered a new formula than can calculate pi to 1 higher digit than what we currently know and the value I got was 4. How do I confirm that it is indeed 4 and not any other number? I have nothing else to compare it to?

I hope this makes sense

In: Mathematics

11 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

> For example if I discovered a new formula than can calculate pi to 1 higher digit than what we currently know

It’s not about discovering a new formula, it’s about how long you want to spend calculating it. All our existing formulas can calcaulate pi to infinity given infinite time, but we don’t give them infinite time.

So the current “record” of pi is just whoever has the most efficient formula and spent the most time calculating extra digits.

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