by Craig Muir

Last updated at 12:24, Thursday, 04 February 2010

You may find this hard to believe but apparently numbers, like people, have personalities. They have different qualities and characteristics. Some are more attractive than others.

Not convinced? Try telling that to the Chudnovsky brothers. The pair, originally from Kiev, designed and built a supercomputer so complex that it snaked from room to room until it eventually took over their Manhattan apartment. More amazingly, its sole purpose was to calculate one number. A number infinitely long with endless decimal places.

Luckily this number has a name, Pi.

Most of us will remember it from school maths lessons, but only a few will recall its relationship between circumference and diameter. An engineer, on the other hand, will tell you it’s about three, while to a physicist it is 3.1415927, plus or minus 0.000000005.

To the Chudnovsky brothers though, it’s much, much more. For years tThey immersed themselves in its digits to learn about its nature, to discover its hidden secrets.

Of course most of us have better things to do with our time. Besides, unlike the brothers, we all hate anything to do with maths, right? But to them, and other mathematicians, the way a number unravels to reveal itself can be sexy. And why not? Many men appreciate a good figure, although most do prefer them more rounded.

First published at 11:23, Thursday, 04 February 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk