Kondo used Alexander Yee’s y-cruncher program to calculate pi to 10 trillion digits, which is a record calculation for both supercomputers and home computers. Shigeru Kondo carried out the longest calculation of pi to date on October 19, 2011. Ferguson’s calculation of pi to 710 digits in 1947 with a desk calculator to Takahashi Kanada’s calculation of pi to 206,158,430,000 digits in 1999 with a Hitachi SR8000. Of course, then computers entered the picture and calculating pi knew no bounds-beginning with D. The approximate ratio for pi also appears in the Bible in 1 Kings 7:23: He accomplished this by finding the areas of two polygons: the polygon that was inscribed inside a circle, and the polygon in which a circle was circumscribed (see figure above, right).Ĭhinese mathematician Zhu Chongzhi (AD 429-500) used a similar method to approximate the value of pi, using a 12,288-sided polygon. The Babylonians estimated pi to be about 25/8 (3.125), while the Egyptians estimated it to be about 256/81 (roughly 3.16).Archimedes didn’t calculate the exact value of pi, but rather came up with a very close approximation-he used 96-sided polygons to come up with a value that fell between 3.1408 and 3.14285.The Ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 BC) is largely considered to be the first to calculate an accurate estimation of the value of pi. The earliest textual evidence of pi dates back to 1900 BC both the Babylonians and the Egyptians had a rough idea of the value. (One cubit is about 18 inches, though it was measured by a person’s forearm length and thus varied from one person to another.) Egyptologists believe these proportions were chosen for symbolic reasons, but, of course, we can never be too sure. The Great Pyramid at Giza, which was built between 25 BC, has a perimeter of 1760 cubits and a height of 280 cubits, which gives it a ratio of 1760/280, or approximately 2 times pi.
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