NASA: "How Many Decimals of Pi Do We Really Need?"

General Memory Chat
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Does JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] only use 3.14 for its pi calculations? Or do you use more decimals like say:

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360

For JPL’s highest accuracy calculations, which are for interplanetary navigation, we use 3.141592653589793.

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I like the bit about the 40 decimal places for pi for the observable universe. Practical math.

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Basically, \frac{3}{1} when doing back of the envelope calculations, followed by \frac{22}{7} when using pencil and paper seriously, followed by \frac{355}{113} using a pocket calculator, followed by \frac{312,689}{99,532} when using a computer, and lastly \frac{1,146,408}{364,913} when giving interviews. :wink:


ps: I like to use \frac{355}{113} as my go-to approximation

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