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Researchers have expended a great deal of effort computing as many of those digits as computer technology and mathematical methods allow. Last year, Yasumasa Kanada of the University of Tokyo calculated pi to 206,158,430,000 decimal digits.
A high school student has now smashed that record. Using a home-built computer crafted from scrounged parts, Franklin Oliver O’Leary of Deep Orange, N.J., has calculated 500 billion decimal digits of pi, starting at the trillionth digit. His heroic effort has opened up a vast, untrodden realm for alphanumerical investigation.