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What field do you work in, and how many digits of pi do you use? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by nycki@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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This article says that NASA uses 15 digits after the decimal point, which I'm counting as 16 in total, since that's how we count significant digits in scientific notation. If you round pi to 3, that's one significant digit, and if you round it to 1, that's zero digits.

I know that 22/7 is an extremely good approximation for pi, since it's written with 3 digits, but is accurate to almost 4 digits. Another good one is √10, which is accurate to a little over 2 digits.

I've heard that 'field engineers' used to use these approximations to save time when doing math by hand. But what field, exactly? Can anyone give examples of fields that use fewer than 16 digits? In the spirit of something like xkcd: Purity, could you rank different sciences by how many digits of pi they require?

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[–] thurstylark@lemm.ee 37 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Ya know, this thread has inspired me. I'm a sound engineer, and find myself yelling "check one two three four" in the michrophone to test it all the time. I'm gonna start reciting the digits of Pi instead, and then as I learn them, I'll progressively advance how many numbers of Pi that I use in my everyday job :D

I work at a library, though. I should probably just go with poetry or Douglas Adams or something, but this makes me sound much more impressive

[–] FlightyPenguin@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Or some Douglas Adams poetry: Vogon poetry.

[–] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,

Thy micturations are to me

As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.

[–] HaywardT@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 8 months ago

You are already reciting some of the digits of pi. Just not the first ones.