Pi and Four Fingers - Numberphile

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NUMBERPHILE

Videos by Brady Haran

[christophersavignon]

I can remember every digit of 1/3 far beyond the 40, 000th.

[Toastmaster_]

"and then you draw an octagon" *scribbles everywhere*

[vladulenta]

when i was a child i thought characters have 4 fingers so they have no middle fingers
(it was a good theory at the time ._.)

[DOUGLS]

This reminded me of the episode "Bye Bye Nerdie" where Frink was trying to make an audience of scientists to stay quiet, so the shouted "Pi is exactly three!"

[okuhara]

3:07 - Me trying to solve math problems.

[bmbmsg]

all I could concentrate on throughout this whole video was this guy's haircut

[ChrisDodgen]

It's not about the fingers looking like a bunch of bananas, which can certainly happen. It's that in the early days of animation, they figured out that cutting down on the number of fingers cut down on the man-hours and money it took to tween them. For lovers of math, think about it as 2 fewer fingers to draw times 12 frames per second times 60 seconds times 10 minutes. That's 14, 400 fingers you didn't have to draw, quite an economical difference.

[ryanamberger]

I remember an episode where burns is talking about his grandpa, reminiscing about the past when they used to split atoms by hand. Showed an employee busting atoms with a hammer and his grandpa catches the employee stealing atoms by hiding them in his pocket. LOL

[shrimatkapoor]

I love how Simon Singh goes into so much detail... It really makes maths so cool

[IvaNiftyChannel]

in the simpsons, Homer is actually the world's leading specialist in pie

[SinisterSally]

I'm Cambodian, my early life was in base 5. when I was younger I was able to easily go from base 5 when talking with my parents and base 10 at school. Now a days I have to count if i want to remember what the Khmer equivalent of an English number after 15 lol.

[sekiz_kelvin]

Simon Singh is a wonderful story teller. He is one of my favorite Numberphile people. I hope to see new videos featuring him.

[sdbo]

wait... life of pie was really about Apu?

[markmcarthur]

I love how he's using a colourful kid's bucket to avoid embarrassment :)

[brocseib]

Incidentally related to this video, Plouffe was a former world record holder for memorizing digits of pi to 4096 digits, which stood until 1977.

----
This note explains the story of the so-called Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe
algorithm
and formula.

  The story began many years ago in 1974 when I wanted to find
a formula for the n'th digit of Pi. I was studying rational and
irrational
numbers. With my calculator I was computing inverses of primes and
could
easily find a way to compute those inverses in base 10 to many digits
using
congruences and rapid exponentiation. Since it appeared impossible to
do
the same for Pi, I wanted then to find a simple formula f(n) that
could compute
the n'th digit of Pi. I had that idea for 20 years.

Since the computation of Pi looks
more complicated than the number E, i.e. exp(1), I studied a way to
compute
that number instead. At that time (around 1983), I had a simple Basic
program
that used a spigot algorithm to compute E, as expected that algorithm
worked but
of course but was taking an increasing amount of memory. My question
was :
why can't we do it for E or Pi or any irrational numbers like sqrt(2).

It was during the year 1994 that I began to compute arctan series but
I did not
realized that this meant a lot. I was able to use an algorithm to
compute arctan
of 1/5 with fast exponentiation without realizing that it could
compute arctan(1/5)
in base 5 very fast since the rapid exponentiation was natural in that
base.

Later in 1995, around august 7 of that year I suddenly realized that
log(2) was
fast computable in base 2. Since I had a bit of experience with spigot
algorithms
and also my little Basic program to compute arctan, it was not
difficult to adapt
the algorithm to log(2).
In the next few days I made my first program : A program to compute
log(9/10)
in base 10 using a very small amount of memory and very fast. The
program had
432 characters long.

That discovery was a shock to me. I realized that I had found it yes
but it was not
new to me since I could do arctan(1/5) easily too but it took me 2
years to realize it.

This is where I began to use Pari-Gp, that program could find an
integer relation
among real numbers (up to a certain precision), very fast.

During my stay at Bordeaux University in 1992-1993 I perfected that
program I had
that could interface Pari-Gp and Maple. That little Unix script had an
enormous
advantage of flexibility because I could set up a series of real
numbers to test among 1
unknown. At that time I was beginning to find new results, the
programs were able to
find identities.

That program was the one that found the formula for Pi in hexadecimal
(or binary).
I also used another one : PSLQ. It was a good program but a bit
cumbursome to use
since it is written in fortran. Nevertheless I made an interface to
Maple too.
Pari-Gp was by far easier to use and faster for small cases (up to 10
real numbers at
the time with 100 digits precision was enough for those kind of
problems).

This is where I made the biggest mistake in my life : To accept the
collaboration
of Peter Borwein and David H. Bailey as co-founders of that algorithm
and formula
when they have found nothing at all. David Bailey was not even close
to me when
I found the formula. He was added to the group 2 months after the
discovery.

I was naively thinking that I could negociate a job as professor at
Simon Fraser
University, which failed. I am very poor at negociations.
I remember that day when the Globe & Mail newspaper article went out
in October
1995. I was at Jon borwein's house and he had a copy of the newspaper
in hand.
This is where I asked him to become a professor at SFU. He simply
replied right
away < don't even think about it >. I thought, this is the best chance
I will ever have
to become a professor there, since it failed, I decided that I had to
leave that place.

I was very frustrated at that time, in late 1995 after the discovery.
I realized that
many small details where terribly wrong. They were getting a lot of
credit for the
discovery and I had the impression of not getting anything in return.
My strategy
failed. One of those details was the article of the Globe and Mail, I
asked Peter Borwein
: why did they putted the photo of you and your brother on the article
? Your brother
has nothing to do with this!.  He simply replied that the Public
Relations at the
University made a mistake.
Later that year, I was invited to a ceremony in Vancouver for the CUFA
(faculty of
the year Award).
This is a prize with plaque and mention that those 2 brothers received
for the
discovery of the formula. They simply mentioned my name at the
ceremony and
I received nothing at all. They made a toast to the queen of England,
I did not
stand up.

In late 1995, there was that Canadian Math Soc. congress in Vancouver,
I was not
invited to talk about the discovery. There was even a guy (Stan Wagon)
that said
to me, I don't know if you have anything to do with this but in all
case, this is
good for you isn't ?

Then in 1996, I realized that if I get up at night to hate them it is
a very bad sign,
it means that I have to leave that place (Simon Fraser university).
I was convinced I had no future at all with those 2 guys around.
I was making serious plans to leave.

The story of the formula (my formula), was not the only one. The same
thing happened
with the ISC (the Inverse Symbolic Calculator). The story is even more
ridiculous.
I opened the site with my constants in July 1995 and it was an
immediate success.
The 2 Borweins had nothing to do with that thing, I had made the
tables and all
of the Unix programs to run it. The precious help I had was from Adam
Van Tuyl, a
graduate student, he made most of the code behind the web pages, later
Paul Irvine
made some additional code.

At that time the local administrator of the lab. tried to convince me
to stay even to pay me
for maintaining the ISC, I refused. I wanted to leave with what I had
: my tables of
real numbers and sequences I worked for years (since 1986). This is
why I opened the
Plouffe Inverter with my name in 1998, to keep what was mine.
When I realized that I was about to loose the paternity of the ISC, I
left in march 1997.
I went to Champaign Illinois to work for Wolfram and Mathematica.
(this time it took me less time), that one was worst than the 2
brothers combined. I simply
left as soon as I could, 5 months later.

Peter Borwein wanted very much that I do a Ph. D. on the ISC but he
wanted also to
publish (with his name of course) an article before I deposit the
thesis. Again the
same story was going on, these 2 guys are so greedy I can't believe
it. The behavior they
had with me was not exclusive, especially Peter Borwein he was the
same with most of
his students, especially the good ones, sucking the maximum. Jon is
the same but he
has more talent in politics (more money too). He is good but has a
tendency to site
himself a lot. He thinks that if he had the idea of the sum of 2
numbers at one point
in his life then all formulas in mathematics are his own discovery.

About David H. Bailey. He came after the discovery of the formula and
my small basic
program, I had also a fortran version. This is where Peter Borwein
suggested to add
him as a collaborator to the discovery since he contributed to it (as
he said), this is my
second big mistake. Of course he accepted to co-write the article, who
wouldn't ?!
David H. Bailey (and Ferguson) are the authors of the PSLQ program.
That program is
the <american> version of the Pari-Gp program. I used it a little it
is true, but what made
the discovery was pari-Gp and Maple interface program I had. So
actually, that person
has nothing to do with the discovery of that algorithm and very little
to do with the
finding of the formula. The mistake was mine. Saying that Bailey found
the formula
is like saying that the formula was found by the Maple and Basic
program.

I tried very hard to correct the situation avoiding the subject of the
actual discovery
of the algorithm and the formula, I made an article in 1996 for the
base 10. I thought
naively again that this would re-establish the situation, it did not.
I almost accepted
to do a film at one point in 1999 when a certain guy from England that
wanted to make a
movie on Pi and the discovery of the formula. he asked me if I would
accept to talk
about my <differents> with the Borweins. I did not wanted to go in
that direction,
I should had. There was that book of Jean-Paul Delahaye (le fascinant
nombre pi)
that mentioned the Plouffe algorithm and formula because I told him
part of the
story. In some way I was afraid of revealing that enormous story.


Why was I so naive ?
I had a previous collaboration with Neil Sloane and the Encyclopedia
of Integer Sequences
and the web site, this was really a big success and Neil is the person
I respect the most
in mathematics so this is why I thought (wrongly ) that my
collaboration with the
Borweins had to go well, a big mistake.

Why do I write this ?
To tell the truth and also the arrogance of those people makes me
sick.

Will I gain something from this ? I don't care, I have nothing to
loose.

Simon Plouffe
Montréal, le 22 juin 2003.

[magellanicraincloud]

At 2:26 Archimedes chokes on his beer, overhearing someone explaining how you can measure volume by dipping in water and weighing what falls out.

[MarkusHobelsberger]

Now... actually the interesting question is... what is pi's 40.000th digit in base 8?

[gupbernard]

Now I'm very curious if the 40, 000th number of pi in octal base is also 1. Can someone run it?

[wmheric]

"There are two reasons for doing Mathematics. One reason is to solve problems. We might call that Applied Mathematics, and engineers use it, and scientists use it, and everybody uses it -- in order to get something done. But the other half of Mathematics is what we might call Pure Mathematics. It is purely there, for the love of Mathematics, for the enrichment to Mathematics. I suspect that the Spigot Algorithm is really done for the love of it, for trying to understand this wonderful number we call Pi."

Well said. Well said.

[Huntracony]

i tried to post the first 100, 000 digits of pi, youtube responded "there was a problem saving your comment" XD