Download this project!Project Notes
This is an entry in PlanetX's Pi Day contest
The fastest converging series formula for Pi I have ever seen (not that I've made a study of it or anything).
This project demonstrates the Bailey Borwein Plouffe (BBP) formula for calculating Pi and calculates the first 10 terms of the series.
Thanks to Kevin Karplus for the use of his Print Decimal project.
Have a Happy Pi Day!
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Hee Hee! I like the name!
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I'm working on calculating pi with more integers... But in order to do so, I first had to teach scratch how to divide to a specified amount of decimal places. Teaching scratch how to divide was hard at first, but then I looked at how us normal humans do long division, and wrote down the steps. Then, I put it into scratch code. I've also taught scratch how to add in the format that I'm using. (lists, for really big numbers!!!!) Currently, scratch has only 1 decimal place. I made it infinite.
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Well, that's cool that you've built your own number representation to any precision you want! Amazing. However, Scratch carries far better than 1 decimal place of accuracy. It is true that it only SHOWS one decimal in it's results...but internally, the numbers are represented more accuratly. You can show this by multiplying the answers by 1000 or 10000 and looking at the results.
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just to let anyone know, einstein is not as smart as you think. E=mc(2) is not a formula. it is a algabreic expression so he is not knowing what E(2) is.
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Uh, yes it is. It means that Energy=Mass x Speed of Light Squared. Say Einstein knew the energy and mass of an object. He could take energy, divide it by mass, and take the square root to find the speed of light.
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awsumm..
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E=mc2...pi...four score n, seven years ago... god i luv learning but im kinda getting sick of itt cuz the year's almost ova but at least im gonna get to go to this special camp from my school to walk (and talk!) it all off. :) but anyway cool i could have never figured this out on my own i mean just cuz im a computer geek doesn't mean i'm a complete wiz at math.
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Sounds like you're ready for a vacation! I'm more of a math geek myself - I know enough programming to make the math work. Most of my math is nothing too fancy, with the exception of Perpetual Slinky where I actually got to use a tiny bit of Calculus!
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Okay, how does this formula work because I am not following. Yeesh, cats these days, never showing there work.
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Well, this is a Series equation. You can learn about those in Wikipedia probably better than I can describe it here.
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I have a uestion, P2S. Is there a block inScratch that multiplies numbers to the power of (^). I'm doing a advanced project using a new block I discovered from another's project. It is called abs. I've seen it before, sso I'm testing with it. I'm trying to make a number, and mabye I'll then use algebra...but, the main question is, is there a ^ brick in Scratch?
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I am sorry to say that there is not. That is pretty strange when you consider that they give you functions for Natural Logarithm (ln) and Eulers Constant raised to a power (e^) which are functions much less commonly used then the simple 'raised to a power' function. I don't know why it is not included.
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Hey! I figured out a way to do it using the functions they give you. x^n = e^( n * ln(x)). So if 'x' is your number and 'n' is the power you want to raise it to, take the Natural Log (ln) of 'x', multiply that by 'n' then use that as a power on Euler's Constant (e^). That's a really ugly way to do it but it seems to work.
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sweet!! I love this!
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i get it home made pi
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pie
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lol homemade pi yum i want to eat my _ ||
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I love Knowlage!
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I love math!
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Woah!Thats awesome!
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Sorry pieclip, you are wrong.
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good but pi=3.1415962 not 3.1415926
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that's not right hazelleafkitty... but o well
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3.141592635 are the only numbers of pi that i can remember! happy pi day X3
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Yes, that is truly amazing! However, it will give you the digits in base 16......
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Amazing work. I was going to try this myself, but you got there first! Great job. For those who are interested, this method is unique in that it can compute any arbitrary digit without computing the previous digits.
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you beat my pi calculator by a light year
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wow
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YOUR VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY STILL SMART
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75zx - No, I didn't figure out the formula...I just wrote the project that calculates values from it. Pi day is March 14 because it's the 14th day of the 3rd month so 3/14. The value of Pi is starts with the digits 3.14 so thats why 3/14 is Pi day.
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WOW DID YOU FIGER THAT ALL OUT IN YOUR HEAD AND WATS PI DAY???????????????
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Thanks!
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i like it better this way. now you can really see the change. great job on this project!
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Reworked the project so all the intermediate answers are also shown - it's easier to see how the digits change with each iteration this way.
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PlanetX - The authors of the formula are three people named Bailey, Borwein, and Plouffe (last names). I don't know their first names. You should download it to look at the coding, it is really very simple. Thanks for the idea of slowing it down a bit...I'll do that.
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also, how did you manage to program it?
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woah. now that you explained that to me, i can see how amazing that formula is. do you know who came up with it? also, this is just a suggustion, i think you should make it go a bit slower, so you can see how the number changes by the end, because i thought it went to fast when i watched it
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Weird, it works.
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I will look at that site...
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Nice project! Pi is so cool. Hehe, I love all numbers. :)
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If you want to learn more about series equations, try this website: http://mathrocks.thebernas.net/IntMath3/SequencesSeries/pages/arithseries/arithseriessig.htm
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PlanetX - You can see the limits of the series at the bottom and top of the Sigma symbol.
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PlanetX - This formula is an infinite series...to get the exact answer you would have to set the value of n to 0,1,2,3 ... all the way to infinity and add up different pieces (that sideways M symbol is called sigma and it means this is a series formula). Each time you change n you get a different "term", which just means piece of the formula. Even though you would have to add up an infinite number of terms to get an exact answer, you can see here that you get a pretty close answer after only adding up 10 terms - it "converges" on the final answer quickly.
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what does it mean by terms?
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See other Pi projects at (link to gallery)
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Haven't a clue how BB & P came up with this amazing formula but it sure is impressive!
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