Who needs a pocket calculator?

[Bill, KD0HG]

TOKYO Jul 2, 2005 — A Japanese psychiatric counselor has recited pi to 83,431 decimal places from memory, breaking his own personal best of 54,000 digits and setting an unofficial world record, a media report said Saturday.

Akira Haraguchi, 59, had begun his attempt to recall the value of pi a mathematical value that has an infinite number of decimal places at a public hall in Chiba city, east of Tokyo, on Friday morning and appeared to give up by noon after only reaching 16,000 decimal places, the Tokyo Shimbun said on its Web site.

But a determined Haraguchi started anew and had broken his old record on Friday evening, about 11 hours after first sitting down to his task, the paper said.

He reached the 80,000-digit mark after midnight early Saturday, according to the paper, which had a photo showing Haraguchi with his eyes closed, his face contorted in concentration.

If verified and recognized by the Guinness Book of Records, Haraguchi's feat would beat his own previous best currently under review of 54,000 digits. The official current record-holder, also Japanese, calculated pi from memory to 42,195 decimal places in 1995.

Pi, usually given as an abbreviated 3.14, is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. The number has fascinated and confounded mathematicians for centuries.

Aided by a supercomputer, a University of Tokyo mathematician set the world record for figuring out pi to 1.24 trillion decimal places in 2002.

Researchers say that calculating pi to more than about 1,000 decimal places has not much purpose in math or engineering, though mathematicians have done so to test the accuracy and limits of supercomputers.

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[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I feel so...inadequate....where in the @#$%^! are my car keys??!

[nq5t]

And I used to think that knowing Pi or e to 100 places was quite a feat :-)

As to "pocket" calculators -- so, ok, maybe it will only fit in a coat pocket -- what you really need is one of these:

[k4kyv]

It sounds  like someone has time on his or her hands.  I find it  hard enough to remember 7-digit phone numbers.   I could think of more productive uses of one's mental faculties.

[wa2zdy]

My K&E slide rule is feeling awfully inadequate right now . . .

[nq5t]

As to "pocket" calculators -- so, ok, maybe it will only fit in a coat pocket -- what you really need is one of these:

Oops .. bad link, darn those pesky keyboards.  That should be one of these, a fine "boatanchor" calculator.

[wa2zdy]

Now THAT thing looks impressive.  Reminds me of the time I saw the replica of Babbage's difference engine.  

I like mechanical gadgets.  I just wish I had the aptitude to understand most of them better.  (I rebuilt a TTY M15 once - that taxed me greatly!)

[nq5t]

Now THAT thing looks impressive.  Reminds me of the time I saw the replica of Babbage's difference engine.

They are really neat.  Used by a lot of engineers, and were the real time "computer"  du jour for car rallying enthusiasts.  Finally went out of production in 1970.  The Model I in the picture I posted fits right in your hand -- the image is a little larger than lifesize.  The Model II, which has longer registers, is a bit fatter.  

An article about the Curta calculator appeared in Scientific American a couple of years ago (give or take), and right after it did the value/price on them jumped skyward for a while, before settling back (although the "normal" gong rate is still pretty pricey).

There's a lot of interesting information, including a couple of on-line simulators at http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm

[wa2zdy]

"pricey" is a good word for them.  I looked them up.  Not something I'll be adding to my collection of gadgets anytime soon.

Fun to learn about though; I'd never seen one before.  Thanks for sharing!

[nq5t]

"pricey" is a good word for them.

Yeah, the going rate is in the $600-800 range.  After the SA article they hit $2500+ for a while.   Lot of money for ANY kind of calculator, even a collectible one.

But while you're sitting there in front of your 75A4, it's right on the timeline to help you figure out how much "L" you need in that network.  Unless you're using a Picket or K&E, of course.  Forget pushing buttons, you need to either "crank" or "slide" ;-)

Grant/NQ5T

[Paul, K2ORC]

Grant, thanks for the link to the Curta site.  Very interesting.   I have a Pickett slide rule that I still use from time to time just to stay in practice.  Never know when you might find yourself with dead batteries and no place to plug in a wall wart.

[wa2zdy]

I have a K&E I still use and the miniature slide rule I got for Christmas 1975 when my mother rightfully knew she couldn't afford an electronic calculator.  The story is on my webpage with pics if anyone is interested.

http://www.geocities.com/wa2zdy/sliderule.html

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Still have a Pickett Dual base Log log rule.  Was just a conversation piece until I was able to reprint an instruction manual off the net. Show'd my kids, and told them this was what put men on the moon....

[nq5t]

Still have a Pickett Dual base Log log rule.  Was just a conversation piece until I was able to reprint an instruction manual off the net. Show'd my kids, and told them this was what put men on the moon....

I have a small collection of slide rules, and still carry a 6" Picket N4p in my briefcase ..  it cetainly gets a "look" anytime I pull it out  :roll:

But there are times when it's faster and more efficient than an electronic thingy, and it helps remind you that every answer doesn't automatically have 24 places of precision when you have  maybe two places to start with -- regardless of how many digits there are in the display  :idea:

[Paul, K2ORC]

I have no stake in the business site below, but I think Chris you said on your slide rule page that you were looking for circular rules, which he seems to have in stock.   It's an interesting website anyway.

http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/sliderule.html

[Bill, KD0HG]

The Russians once led world development in analog electronic computers, when everyone else was entering the digital ara. I think *their* first space shots were calculated on a whole bunch of discrete op-amps.


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[wa2zdy]

Thanks for that website Paul.  I found my K&E on there.  If the case didn't have initials of some previous owner marked under the flap, it would be worth quite a bit of cash.  Oh well.

None of the circular rules they currently have appeal to me, but I'll be checking back - frequently.

Thanks again.

[nq5t]

Thanks for that website Paul.  I found my K&E on there.  Thanks again.

I've purchased a couple of rules there in the past.  No hassle, no issues.