A Japanese boffin calculated the value of Pi to five trillion using a homemade computer. Shigeru Kondo, 55, who works as systems engineer for a food company based in northern Japan, broke the earlier record of 2.7 trillion digits that was established late last year.
According to the Kyodo news agency the gargantuan calculation was nearly blown when his daughter tripped a circuit breaker after a hair dryer was turned on. Fortunately the computer switched to an 10-minute back-up power source.
The homemade computer cost 13,000 euros to make and has a hard-drive capacity of 32 terabytes.
The engineer now aims to try and compute the value of Pi to 10 trillion digits. His wife Yukiko, though, is not too happy as the computer sent their electricity bill through the roof.
We are not sure what he actually achieved other than 15 minutes of fame.
To five trillion places
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Nick Farell
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