Comment on Order of magnitude is a hell of a drug
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day agoWhat would be the “n” in that Big O notation, though?
If you’re saying that you want accuracy out to n digits, then there are algorithms with specific complexities for calculating those. But that’s still just an approximation, so those aren’t any better than the real-world implementation method of simply looking up that constant rather than calculating it anew.
Gustephan@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I guess n would be infinite in the limit I’m looking for. I’m looking at this in like a “musing about theoretical complexity” angle rather than actually needing to use or know how to use pi on modern systems.
For the record, I realize how incredibly pedantic I’m being about the difference between the irrational pi and rational approximations of pi that end up being actually useful. That being said, computational complexity has enough math formalism stink on it that pedantry seems encouraged