Finding the Millionth Digit of Pi

By Ryan

Pi has puzzled many of our brightest minds for centuries. Pi is mainly used to calculate the circumference on a circle. Calculating digits used to be quite difficult, but now thanks to a select few it became a lot easier. The reason it isn't difficult anymore is because mathematicians have found the formula to help them. There is a problem, however. The formula that is used to calculate digits of pi is in Hexadecimal form which is base 16. The reason that the formula is hard to use is because because when using Hexadecimal base it calculates all of the digits from 1 through 9. Since Hexadecimal uses 16 digits you have to make up symbols for the remaining 7 digits. The most common symbols that are used are just the letter of the alphabet A through G. 3.243F6A8885A308D313198A2E0.


This is an example of a number in base 16, or Hexadecimal base.

This is the formula that is used to calculate digits for Pi in Hexadecimal form. Later they convert the number they were given so that it can be read without symbols.

The people who first discovered this formula are David Bailey, Peter Borwein, and Simon Plouffe. This was the formula that was used to find the 1 millionth digit of Pi.

Click here to view the first million digits of pi (1,275 kb).