Alexander Aitken, the Human Computernzedge.com 14 pointskerny11 years ago4 commentsSaveHideCopy link On HNComments−Medox11y"Aitken could recite Pi to 707 decimal places", and how about 22.514? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z22H89rIMHk @ 8:00 (although the entire documentary is great)−Tycho11yWhen people say recite Pi is there some calculation involved or are they just memorising a large string of numbers?−thinkpad2011ySounds like a remarkable guy. But, and not to nitpick, but calling him "the greatest mathematician of his era" is a bit ridiculous. This was the era of Hilbert, von Neumann, Gödel, Turing, Einstein, Ramanujan...−3rd311yYeah, the mainstream will probably never get the distinction between mathematics and arithmetics straight.
Comments
"Aitken could recite Pi to 707 decimal places", and how about 22.514? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z22H89rIMHk @ 8:00 (although the entire documentary is great)
When people say recite Pi is there some calculation involved or are they just memorising a large string of numbers?
Sounds like a remarkable guy. But, and not to nitpick, but calling him "the greatest mathematician of his era" is a bit ridiculous. This was the era of Hilbert, von Neumann, Gödel, Turing, Einstein, Ramanujan...
Yeah, the mainstream will probably never get the distinction between mathematics and arithmetics straight.