Simon Plouffe

Simon Plouffe

Simon Plouffe (born June 11, 1956) is a French Canadian mathematician who discovered the Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe formula (BBP algorithm) which permits the computation of the nth binary digit of π, in 1995.^[1][2][3] His other 2022 formula allows extracting the nth digit of π in decimal.^[4] He was born in Saint-Jovite, Quebec.

He co-authored The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, made into the website On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences dedicated to integer sequences later in 1995. In 1975, Plouffe broke the world record for memorizing digits of π by reciting 4096 digits, a record which stood until 1977.^[5]

See also

• Fabrice Bellard, who discovered in 1997 a faster formula to compute pi.
• PiHex

Notes

1. Works by Simon Plouffe at Project Gutenberg; accessed March 23, 2015.
2. BBP algorithm, arxiv.org; accessed March 23, 2015.
3. "The story behind a formula for Pi". groups.google.com. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
4. Weisstein, Eric W. "Digit-Extraction Algorithm". MathWorld. (referencing arXiv:2201.12601)
5. David H. Bailey. (September 8, 2006), The BBP Algorithm for Pi (PDF), retrieved March 23, 2015

External links

• Works by Simon Plouffe at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Simon Plouffe at the Internet Archive
• Plouffe website (in French)
• Simon Plouffe at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• N. J. A. Sloane and S. Plouffe, The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, Academic Press, San Diego, 1995, 587 pp. ISBN 0-12-558630-2.