Science Memes

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Magic π (mander.xyz)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Why would you miss the opportunity to make the web page continue computing pi to as many digits as you feel like scrolling down to expose though

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Turns out that's not possible because the complexity of computing pi becomes exponentially harder the more digits you add.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

That is definitely not true. Pi has been computed to way more digits than would be feasible if it were exponential. Looks to me like it's O(n log(n)^3) with n=the number of digits, which sounds basically fine for any number of digits any human is going to have the patience to scroll down to.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There was a recent post asking what the self-taught among us feel we are missing from our knowledge base. For me, it's being able to calculate stuff like that for making decisions. I feel like I can spot an equivalence to the travelling salesman problem or to the halting problem a mile away, but anything more subtle is beyond me.

Of course, in this situation, I'd probably just see if I could find a sufficiently large precalculation and just pretend :)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Just put up a little spinning it’s-loading icon with an increasing delay. Then, when you run out of precalculated data, make it spin forever.

“It’s infinte scrolling man, you just didn’t wait long enough. It’s not my fault you can’t be more patient.”

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