Subj : Re: PI to 104 Decimal Places
To   : Mike Powell
From : Kurt Weiske
Date : Thu Aug 28 2025 07:42:58

-=> Mike Powell wrote to ED VANCE <=-

 MP> When I was younger I remember some folks having those fancy TI
 MP> calculators, and I also remember the "manual" was a pretty large one...
 MP> in my memory, it was at least as thick as the calculator.  ;)

 One of those teachers who make an impression on you was a calculus
 teacher I had in college. He had an interesting approach to come at
 problems from a different perspective to help you understand them.

 In the movie "Ender's Game", when Ender says "The Enemy's Gate is
 Always Down" and the perspective changes, I thought of his class.

 We were encouraged to buy programmable calculators - the stepwise kind
 where you could automate steps into the calculator as a procedure, then
 enter a series of X and Y values and it would step through them - a
 precursor to graphing calculators, as you'd have to plot them
 yourselves.

 The rich kids in the class brought HP 41C calculators. Oh, how I wanted
 one of those! I had to settle for a cheap Casio programmable with 30 or
 so program steps, total.

 My professor's opinion was that computers would soon do all of the
 grunt work that mathmeticians did by hand now. With computers, you'd be
 freed to do the creative work and let the computers grind out the
 results.

 It struck a chord with me.

 A year before, I flunked a senior year high school math class and
 was required to take another course. The only one available mid-year
 was Computer Problem Solving, which inspired me to work with computers.

 If I hadn't flunked that class, I would have completely missed the
 experience of the teacher who reinforced the value of computers as
 tools of computation and might not have been as inspired.

 Despite years of experience, I still enjoy doing computations and
 turning the calculator upside down to spell 80081E5. I suppose your
 inner child never *really* grows up.


 
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