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Question

How to write a python program to calculate pi

Answer 1

+20 A:

import itertools as it

def pi(n):
    coefficients = it.cycle((1, -1))
    divisors = it.islice(it.count(1), 0, n, 2)
    return 4*sum(c * 1.0/d for c, d in it.izip(coefficients, divisors))

Should do the trick. Thank you for donating this portion of your education to a simple high school drop out.

aaronasterling 2010-09-29 22:46:44

+1 for sarcasm ` `

abhin4v 2010-09-29 22:52:27

multiply the sum by 4?

MattH 2010-09-29 22:52:32

You left out the part about prompting the user for the number of terms, and how to call this pi function whatzis, and how to print out the answer. And how to install Python. And how to turn on my computer....

Paul McGuire 2010-09-29 22:53:29

@MattH. fixed. Thanks.

aaronasterling 2010-09-29 22:53:49

@MattH - or rename function to pi_over_4

Paul McGuire 2010-09-29 22:55:55

@Paul: Aaron is just delivering to spec.

MattH 2010-09-29 22:58:12

Probably the most useful part of this answer is that nobody who has to ask how to implement this algorithm would *ever* come up with this solution--it shows how to do it, but in a way that the OP won't be able to understand and could never explain when asked by the teacher. *it's a trap*

Glenn Maynard 2010-09-29 23:10:22

Thanks for the anonymous downvote. I was ten upvotes over my repcap but because of the downvote, I got 2 rep for this answer.

aaronasterling 2010-09-29 23:11:01

Answer 2

+1 A:

There is another implementation here:

http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/5433

rafaelcidade 2010-09-29 22:58:11

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How to write a python program to calculate pi

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