It's the question the Asian girl asks him at the end of the film and the answer is 3,14. Did anyone notice that??
shareI kind of assumed it was - didn't check it though.
"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."
There's a much nicer approximation to Pi, which is easier to remember.
Take 11 33 55 and split the numerals into two groups of three, giving 113 and 355.
355/113 is about 3.141592(9), which is Pi to six decimal places (Pi's seventh decimal place is 6, not 9.).
I find this a useful trick to know.
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Pi's seventh decimal place is 6, not 9.
Your mind makes it real.share
What was I trying to imply? Nothing beyond what I wrote, but I’ll expand on that in case it was unclear. After noting that this approximation was accurate to six decimal places, that is
| 355/113 - π | ≤ 10^(-6),
I thought someone might be interested in a more refined indication of the accuracy, without using their own calculators. (As usual “^” means “to the power of" and “|x|” is the absolute value of x.)
Since I didn’t want to spend a lot of time and space on a digression, I thought it would be enough to write “pi's seventh decimal place is 6, not 9” rather than writing
355/113 = 3.141592[9]2...
π = 3.141592[6]5… ,
with the square brackets just emphasising the first difference between the two decimal expansions.
Incidentally, the approximation 355/113 is just the fourth continued fraction approximation to π. For more information, see http://bit.ly/1grIokV.
(If you were making light-hearted banter with an allusion to the two raciest digits in decimal arithmetic, sorry for answering in such a po-faced way. On the web, I’ve found soulless literalism to be the best policy - at least until you get to know someone.)
ah ok. I assumed that you found a defect in the PI's seventh decimal digit value. It's just that you found an easier way to remember the digits by choosing the numbers 11, 33 and 55, though the 7th digit of its value doesn't match with the actual Pi's.
Thank you for clarifying.
Your mind makes it real.share
Yes, that’s it precisely!
A lot of people remember (and consequently use) 22/7 as a very rough approximation to pi. But if you don’t have a calculator or a phone handy, then forget 22/7 - or even 748/238 ! The mnemonic 11 33 55 —> 355/113 makes 355/113 very easy to remember and it approximates pi to six decimal places.
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Jane, I have to agree that your mnemonic is the sort that I'd use, if only because I only know Pi to ten decimal places. (That's good enough for most practical applications, and for 'impractical' ones - such as in pure maths - I just write the Greek letter.)
That said, there is a conjecture that any finite string of digits can be found somewhere in the decimal expansion of Pi. So, ignoring the initial 3 and the decimal point of Pi, it's thought any finite, whole number occurs somewhere in the list 141592653....
If the conjecture is right, then we could describe any finite whole number by giving the number's starting position in digits of Pi (excluding "3."). For example, the first occurrence of 1 is at position 1, the first 2 is at position 6, the first 3 is at 9 and so on.
Somsomeone with the telephone number 9527 1983 could remember it as the eight digits of the fractional part of Pi, starting at position 13,278.
Similarly, your extension x4832 could be remembered as the four digits of the fractional part of Pi, starting at 12,786.
(This example isn' very compelling, as the the starting location - 12,786 - is longer than the number that you're trying to remember i.e. 4832! Even the first example isn't that great, since it's only useful for people who know Pi to about 14,000 decimal places.)
Still, I think it's an interesting conjecture, and I would love to see it proved or disproved. So far, no computer experiment has come up with a number that cannot be found somewhere in Pi, but - of course - that's not a proof.
There is also the question of whether other "transcendental numbers" (such as Euler's number e = 2.7182818..) have this property, that Pi may have, and why others don't. I find these questions fascinating.
I worked for a while as a secretary in an electrical engineering lab. One of the professors asked me what my phone extension was, and I told him it was x4832. He said, "Oh that'll be easy to remember." I'm thinking, yeah, because 4x8=32. Then he said, "That's the 16th to 19th digits of Pi, backwards!"
Oi! I can no longer edit my posts! Apols for the quotation from your post that's been appended to my reply.
shareAnother observation about the little girl's questions near the end. She asks what is 255 times 183 and then says that the answer is 46665, which is correct.
a) 46665 has the ominous 666 in it (also, 6*6*6 = 216)
Now, interestingly enough 46665/216 = 216.04166666....
b) The result is darn close to 216
c) There is an endless string of 666 in the end (I know that isn't uncommon, but still)
d) 216 * 216 = 46656, a simple rearrangement of the last pair of digits of 46665
So, what's my point? I don't have one - just thought of sharing something curious I noticed. :)