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As you can see from the attached table, he calculated only 607 decimal digits not 707.
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'''William Shanks''' (25 January 1812 – June 1882)<ref>GRO Register of Deaths: JUN 1882 10a 252 HOUGHTON – William Shanks, aged 70</ref> was a [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|British]] amateur mathematician. |
'''William Shanks''' (25 January 1812 – June 1882)<ref>GRO Register of Deaths: JUN 1882 10a 252 HOUGHTON – William Shanks, aged 70</ref> was a [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|British]] amateur mathematician. |
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Shanks is famous for his calculation of ''[[pi|π]]'' to |
Shanks is famous for his calculation of ''[[pi|π]]'' to 607 places, accomplished in 1873, which, however, was only correct up to the first 527 places.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6978433.ece | work=The Times | location=London | title=Pi a mathematical story that would take 49000 years to tell | first=Chris | last=Smyth | date=January 7, 2010}}</ref> This error was highlighted in 1944 by [[D. F. Ferguson]] (using a mechanical [[desk calculator]]).<ref>{{cite web|title=Shanks's Biography|url=http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Shanks.html|publisher=School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland|accessdate=2012-10-30}}</ref> |
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Shanks earned his living by owning a [[boarding school]] at [[Houghton-le-Spring]], which left him enough time to spend on his hobby of calculating mathematical constants. His routine was as follows: he would calculate new digits all morning; and then he would spend all afternoon checking his morning's work. To calculate ''π'', Shanks used [[John Machin|Machin's formula]]: |
Shanks earned his living by owning a [[boarding school]] at [[Houghton-le-Spring]], which left him enough time to spend on his hobby of calculating mathematical constants. His routine was as follows: he would calculate new digits all morning; and then he would spend all afternoon checking his morning's work. To calculate ''π'', Shanks used [[John Machin|Machin's formula]]: |
William Shanks
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Born | (1812-01-25)25 January 1812
Corsenside, Northumberland, England
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Died | 1882 (aged 70)
Houghton-le-Spring, County Durham, England
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Amateur calculator, school owner |
William Shanks (25 January 1812 – June 1882)[1] was a British amateur mathematician.
Shanks is famous for his calculation of π to 607 places, accomplished in 1873, which, however, was only correct up to the first 527 places.[2] This error was highlighted in 1944 by D. F. Ferguson (using a mechanical desk calculator).[3]
Shanks earned his living by owning a boarding schoolatHoughton-le-Spring, which left him enough time to spend on his hobby of calculating mathematical constants. His routine was as follows: he would calculate new digits all morning; and then he would spend all afternoon checking his morning's work. To calculate π, Shanks used Machin's formula:
Shanks's approximation was the longest expansion of π until the advent of the electronic digital computer about one century later.
Shanks also calculated e and the Euler–Mascheroni constant γ to many decimal places. He published a table of primes up to 60 000 and found the natural logarithms of 2, 3, 5 and 10 to 137 places.
Shanks died in Houghton-le-Spring, County Durham, England in June 1882, aged 70, and was buried at the local Hillside Cemetery on 17 June 1882.[4]
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