an expansion of pi to only forty-seven decimal places would be sufficiently precise to inscribe a circle around the visible universe that doesn't deviate from perfect circularity by more than the distance across a single proton. A billion decimals of pi go so far beyond that kind of precision, into such a lunacy of exactitude, that physicists will never need to use the quantity in any experiment-at least, not for any physics we know of today. The mere thought of a billion decimals of pi gave some mathematicians a feeling of indefinable horror, and they declared the Chudnoskys' effort trivial.
( Richard Preston )
[ Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, ]
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