# Of pi and men...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-pi-and-men/67734>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 5, 2001, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-pi-and-men/67734 "2001-06-05T21:47:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-pi-and-men/67734/41 "2001-06-08T18:06:52Z")

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\>\> Let’s not lose the OP for all the digressions.

Hear, hear!

\>\> What is the practical application of computing pi to the umpteenth decimal place?

Still zero

Now, if you remove the term “practical” you could say knowledge in itself is always useful and you never know where it may lead you and it is an end in itself, etc. I do not disagree with this but for now there is no _practical_ use for computing PI to the umpteenth decimal place. Also the same questions may be asked of umpteen billion other numbers which may not be so prominent but are just as scientifically interesting. In many areas of science and finance e is much more prominent than pi.

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**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-pi-and-men/67734/42 "2001-06-08T20:58:20Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by muttrox_  
> \*\*Remember the OP? Practical Application
> 
> pi may be very mathematically interesting and pop up all over the place, but these don’t prove the usefullness of knowing the quadrilliionth+1 digit.\*\*

Now, now…even if I don’t contest your definition of “practical”, **Superdude** also asked “why bother computing it so far” and (later) “Why is pi so darned mathematically significant”. Both of which deserved answering…

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**Author:** ![Joe\_Cool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecb155/32.png) [@Joe\_Cool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Cool)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2001, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-pi-and-men/67734/43 "2001-06-09T01:21:43Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by sailor \*  
> \*\*…Now, if you remove the term “practical” you could say knowledge in itself is always useful and you never know where it may lead you and it is an end in itself, etc. I do not disagree with this but for now there is no _practical_ use for computing PI to the umpteenth decimal place. Also the same questions may be asked of umpteen billion other numbers which may not be so prominent but are just as scientifically interesting. In many areas of science and finance e is much more prominent than pi. \*\*

Paying a little more attention to what you said this time, I think we agree. Mankind is no better off for knowing the 3,148,297,483,680th digit of pi.

But, (from what I have read,) a lot of significant knowledge of number theory has come about as a side effect of the quest to calculate the umpteenth digit.

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