Japanese, US whizzes claim record for pi calculation

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TOKYO: A pair of Japanese and US computer whizzes claim to have calculated pi to five trillion decimal places — a number which if verified eclipses the previous record set by a French software engineer.

“We believe our achievement sets a new record,” Japanese system engineer Shigeru Kondo said, adding that the French man’s calculation to nearly 2.7 trillion places was believed to be the previous record.

The 54-year-old from central Japan, teamed up with Alexander Yee, a US computer science student, to set about calculating the constant that has fascinated mathematicians for millennia.

Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, starts with 3.14159 in a string whose digits are believed to never repeat or end. — AFP