In Acos (docs), the example shows a ? value that ends with a 0:
Const Pi = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950
according to wikipedia, ? is not a finite value (? is an irrational number)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi
So, the Const definition in Acos is false ?
I think the constant will be accurate for most scenarios. Even 5 decimal places (3.14159) should suffice for most problems.
Not sure how one would otherwise represent an infinite value (e.g. Pi) on a finite binary machine?
Having a ‘0’ somewhere does not means it is a ‘finite’ value.
Wikipedia gives the first 100 decimal digits of Pi which contains several ‘0’:
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679
The Const value appears correct to me, truncated/rounded at this particular ‘0’.
Cheers,
Guy.
Akvyn, Guy: thank you for your answer.
Guy: I opened that wikipedia page, (and the same in French), but I do not read to that location (100 digits ?).
It is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi
In the section “Approximate Value”.
Cheers,
Guy.
Guy: thanks.
Alwyn: sorry for the mispelling. This happens to me some days here and there to mis-place my fingers on the keyboard.
I even have a bad period of time where my right hand fingers always type the next keycap: very tedious!
a double can anyway just hold around 15 digits of precision. So the last digits of our const are not stored…
Christian: thank you for the laugh !
;-
Das, ist es vom Volksgesunden Menschenverstand!
For precision references, you only need 39 digits of pi to calculate the circumference of the observable universe to within a hydrogen atom…
http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/21ax4o/til_you_only_need_39_digits_of_pi_to_calculate/