An Unbounded Spigot Algorithm for the Digits of Pi
Rabinowitz and Wagon (<i>American Mathematical Monthly</i> 102(3):195–203, 1995) present a <em>spigot algorithm</em> for computing the digits of π. A spigot algorithm yields its outputs incrementally, and does not reuse them after producing them. Their algorithm is inherently...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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2015
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| Summary: | Rabinowitz and Wagon (<i>American Mathematical Monthly</i> 102(3):195–203, 1995) present a <em>spigot algorithm</em> for computing the digits of π. A spigot algorithm yields its outputs incrementally, and does not reuse them after producing them. Their algorithm is inherently <em>bounded</em>; it requires a commitment in advance to the number of digits to be computed, and in fact might still produce an incorrect last few digits. We propose two <em>streaming algorithms</em> based on the same characterization of π, with the same incremental characteristics but without requiring the prior bound. |
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