On 3/16/2016 6:47 AM, Charles Geilfuss wrote:
I believe that was the point, Moose. Spock knew there is no end to the
calculation of Pi, thus the computer would be so occu"pi"ed that the
corupted program would be overwhelmed.
I agree. I wasn't talking about that directly. I was being a pedant about the phrase "compute the value of pi to the
last significant digit", which is nonsense, absent a context in which it is to be used.
1. As there is no end to Pi "last significant digit" may only refer to the
precision required for some specific use.
2. When I was a physics major at Berkeley, we used slide rules. The last significant digit for that was the hundredths
place, as in 3.14. For someone calculating a course for a spacecraft, it might be 3.14159, or less. The point is that
"last significant digit" for any actual use will not occupy a computer for long at all.
Emmet Crossing Street Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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