Can you calculate Pi using a Solver?

[SlideRule]

(12-13-2019 11:30 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  The comprehensive list given in a previous post doesn't include Monte-Carlo methods to compute Pi if I'm not mistaken (cursory read), and there are some really pretty, though very slow-converging (typically like the square root, i.e.: 100 tries give 2 digits, 10,000 tries give 4, a million tries give 6, and so on.)

Π Unleashed, Springer, © 2000, ISBN 3-540-66572-2, page 39

3.4 Π and chance (Monte Carlo methods)

The needle problem of the Comte de Buffon

During the American Civil War, Captain C.0. Fox was recovering from
a wound in a military hospital. To pass the time, he threw a number
of identical needles in random fashion onto a board on which he had
previously drawn a series of parallel lines each a needle's length apart.
He counted the number of throws and the number of hits, i.e. instances
in which a needle touched or intersected a line.
After 1100 throws, the Captain had determined Π to two decimal
places. How come?
First of all it seems to have been the Comte de Buffon (1707-1788),
who examined this kind of experiment and in whose honour it is now
known as the Buffon needle problem. In 1777, Buffon showed that the
ratio of hits to throws was 2:Π, or, stated otherwise, that the probability
of a needle thrown at random onto the area coming to rest across one
of the lines was, ²/Π ≈ 63.7%. With this knowledge, Fox was able to
calculate Π by doubling the number of throws and dividing by the
number of hits.
The interesting thing about the needle problem is that it forges a
link between the "geometric" Π and the quite different area of probabilities.
There are other similar relationships between Π and chance,
from which other methods of calculating Π are derived. They are informatively
called Monte Carlo methods.

emphasis mine

BEST!
SlideRule