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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I’m a waitress, and pie is $12.50.
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That is 0.025 Millimeter in normal units
You can say 25 micrometers
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
This probably won’t play well with this audience, but I’m a management/strategy consultant. “~5” (technically one decimal place but also rounded to the nearest interval of 5) for any C-level decks ;)
That’s less than one significant digit! Even just to one significant bit, pi is 4.
I can’t say “professionally” but I learned CAD design with FreeCAD, and know the topological naming issue thoroughly.
Almost all “mystery” problems in CAD are due to a combination of the hacks that get around the Topological Naming Issue and π.
In CAD, you cookie, you brownie, you might even salad, but you stay the hell away from importing π as a reference on anything complex. For 3D printing, I never need better than 0.05mm so 3.1416.
If anyone here wants a fun way to memorize more digits, enjoy this song!
Really glad I have a legit reason to share this old thing
baker. I measure pie based on how much I can fit in my mouth
Software engineer… we also use all 16 digits of pi
I’m a liar and I use all the digits of pi.
Well you’re honest about being a liar so there’s that I guess. I on the other hand only speaks the truth and I use all the digits of pi, honestly I do.
