Article View: comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc
Article #681Re: Buffon's Needles
From: Dr John Stockton
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 00:00
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 00:00
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2770 bytes
JRS: In article <37737E88.C3B802D7@research.telcordia.com> of Fri, 25 Jun 1999 09:05:12 in news:comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc, Emmanuel BRESSON <ebresson@research.telcordia.com> wrote: >> A quick test shows that the result obtained from the above code depends >> on, but is not proportional to, the value used for Pi. > >The probability a needle intersects a line is 1/pi. >A efficient formula to compute pi can be found at >http://www.mathsoft.com/asolve/plouffe/plouffe.html > >La probabilite qu'un aiguille intersecte une ligne est 1/pi. >Une formule efficace pour calculer pi se trouve sur >http://www.mathsoft.com/asolve/plouffe/plouffe.html 2.0/Pi, if the needle can just span a board. Possibly you miss my point; I am referring here not to the ideal Pi, but to the value actually used in the calculation, which can be changed. As the result is not proportional, one might possibly determine Pi as that value which, when used in the simulation, leads to a result of itself. The BBP algorithm is certainly interesting; I've put it in my longcalc.pas, and, if base 16 is set, one can see the digits of 16^n*Pi settling one by one. I don't recall any claim that it is particularly efficient, though. -- � John Stockton, Surrey, UK. jrs@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME. � Web <URL: http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links. Correct 4-line sig. separator is as above, a line precisely "-- " (SoRFC1036) Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with ">" or "> " (SoRFC1036)
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: 10a726,d24982a2aa52a35f X-Google-Attributes: gid10a726,public X-Google-Thread: 10a7f1,d24982a2aa52a35f X-Google-Attributes: gid10a7f1,public X-Google-Thread: 105ac8,d24982a2aa52a35f X-Google-Attributes: gid105ac8,public X-Google-Thread: 109585,d24982a2aa52a35f X-Google-Attributes: gid109585,public X-Google-Thread: 10baee,d24982a2aa52a35f X-Google-Attributes: gid10baee,public From: Dr John Stockton <jrs@merlyn.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Buffon's Needles Date: 1999/06/25 Message-ID: <77DAD5AdY+c3EwgC@merlyn.demon.co.uk> X-Deja-AN: 493952166 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-NNTP-Posting-Host: merlyn.demon.co.uk:158.152.233.145 References: <7ks8ls$mgk$1@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <Im0c0MABmjc3Ew2K@merlyn.demon.co.uk> <37737E88.C3B802D7@research.telcordia.com> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 930353420 nnrp-03:17237 NO-IDENT merlyn.demon.co.uk:158.152.233.145 Organization: Home, Surrey, UK MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc,alt.comp.borland-delphi,de.comp.lang.pascal.delphi,fr.comp.lang.pascal,es.comp.lenguajes.delphi