🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 18 Mar 1997 23:56:55 +0100, Perry Winkel <winkarn@worldonline.nl> wrote:
>In article <01bc3440$d8a87040$LocalHost@default>, "Belinda Berry"
><BJBerry@onaustralia.com.au> wrote:
>
>> How do you actually calculate pi anyway. (without loooking it up in a
>> book.) I suppose if you drew up a really accurate circle and did some
>> measuring it might work, but nothing I draw could possibly get more than
>> about 2 decimal places.

>...as I recall from long ago in high school, there is in fact a very easy
>way to determine pi. You need a stick (a pencil works fine also) and a
>floor with a pattern of square tiles. What you do is this:
>

Or borrow a trick from monte carlo integration.  On a computer,
generate two sets of random variables, X and Y which are uniformly
distributed [0,1].  Taking each x and y and calculate the distance
between the origin (0,0) and the point defined by x and y.  If it's
less than 1, increment a counter, say INSIDE otherwise one called
OUTSIDE.  After a suitably large number of (x,y), PI can be determined
by 4* (INSIDE/(INSIDE+OUTSIDE)).  In effect, it would be the
integration of the area inside a unit circle which we know to have an
area of PI*r*r.

Reg.



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