The present authors, together with Andrew Mattingly and Glenn Wightwick of IBM Australia, have published a paper on the computation of pi^2 and Catalan’s constant in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. The article is featured on the cover of the August 2013 issue.
This paper describes the computation of mathematical objects (digits of pi^2 and Catalan’s constant) that until a few years ago were widely believed in the mathematical community to be forever beyond the reach of human reasoning or calculation. In particular, the paper describes the computation of:
- Base-64 digits of pi^2 beginning at position 10 trillion.
- Base-729 digits of pi^2 beginning at position 10 trillion.
- Base-4096 digits of Catalan’s constant beginning at position 10 trillion.
The paper presents historical background, the mathematical theory behind the work, and specific details of the actual machine computations. The paper also discusses future research directions, such as to explore the intriguing connection between BBP-type formulas (which are used in these computations) and the age-old question of whether and why the digits of constants such as pi are “random.”
Full details are given in the Notices paper.