World pi record smashed by female mathematician with help of google

Couldn't anyone do it with pencil and paper? Just divide 22 by 7 and keep going.

a trillion seconds would amount to no less than 31,709.8 years

So I don't think anyone would have the time!

Couldn't anyone do it with pencil and paper? Just divide 22 by 7 and keep going.

It SUCKS I have to say. Transwomen are VASTLY overrepresented in tech - something about the culture, plus the autism comorbidity. And they do not face any institutional barriers - maybe after they come out, but tech TW are invariably the late transitioning kind and got to adulthood with male privilege and male socialisation. It's the exact opposite of inspiring to see their accomplishments celebrated as female accomplishments.

yes, also my concern is that if they haven't had female socialisation and the crap that comes with a girl trying to get around in those feields, and excelling despite those barriers...

what exactly are you celebrating? The woke are celebrating a person with a "lady brain" being able to do tech/maths/science. Like that's the impressive bit. They might as well give women an award that says "not as stupid as the rest".

and yikes I realised i just derailed this thread which is about an actual female accomplishment and should be inspiring not moany. Sorry! I'll moan about this another time, I love women who go all in on nerdiness so this accomplishment makes me happy.

popcorn I think she's an actual woman but I know what you mean. It's happened to me more than once that i hear about a woman with amazing math/tech accomplishments and feel inspired and then feel very uninspired a few short minutes later when I find out more about "her."

It SUCKS I have to say. Transwomen are VASTLY overrepresented in tech - something about the culture, plus the autism comorbidity. And they do not face any institutional barriers - maybe after they come out, but tech TW are invariably the late transitioning kind and got to adulthood with male privilege and male socialisation. It's the exact opposite of inspiring to see their accomplishments celebrated as female accomplishments.

I thought the video interview showed the point of it - not the value of pi itself, but as a cool stress test of the hardware and software. The stuff about swapping the VMs etc.

Ok thanks eccles clearly asking a computer to divide X by Y is far more complicated than I imagined. I thought it was the same process as a calculator just with bigger storage facility. Guess not.

'woman does something technologically great ... ooh, can she really be a woman, and is it actually that great

In fairness, even the OP said she wasn't sure of the relevance of figuring out PI to the bajillion. It's a bit anorak-y at best not to say it isn't an achievement just the sort most won't see the point of.

Slinky - well, you could start here

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

... it gets beyond me and I write scientific software.

Normal computer code represents non integral numbers to a precision far less than we're talking about here. Doing the calculations on massive numbers of digits, accurately storing all those digits .... it has to be a completely different ballgame to what you may be imagining.

Emma used an app called something like y-cruncher which ran on 25 of google's computers. Anybody could have done it with that computing facility.

Not obvious in the video in the link upthread - where she's actually talking.

I'd rather there wasn't this sort of speculation ... I'm sure you no-one intended this but the thread icomes over rather as 'woman does something technologically great ... ooh, can she really be a woman, and is it actually that great'.

eccles or anyone. I don't even understand the basics! In my ignorance I'm thinking oh ok she's written a bit of code that says divide this by this and keep going. Erm doesn't that bit of code already exist? I'm not try to be obtuse, I would like to share in the celebration.

Regardless of any of that, it's clearly a huge achievement which is so far above my ability to appreciate that I'm not go8ng to try to understand it.

Of course there are - I suspect that the PP meant proportionally ie percentage of transpeople in IT is greater than percentage of transpeople in the population.

I actually did even say that in my post so I'm not really sure what deydododatdodontdeydo's point was.

I would be very happy if the tech world celebrated diversity accurately. Emma identifies as queer. That's great.

I would prefer the media did not celebrate her as a woman in tech unless she is. There are a lot of photos which show her appearing to have a pronounced Adam's apple.

It does? I bet there's more women in tech than trans women.

Yes, I'm sure there are.

It does? I bet there's more women in tech than trans women

Of course there are - I suspect that the PP meant proportionally ie percentage of transpeople in IT is greater than percentage of transpeople in the population.

Quite a few unflattering photos of Emma out there.
and?

the tech world has a high rate of transwomen

It does? I bet there's more women in tech than trans women.

Can someone please explain this to me as if I was an 8 year old please.

No, not really! I've spent over 30 years writing scientific software and I don't understand all the challenges involved in this sort of computation, other than its very difficult.

eccles still none the wiser. Excuse my ignorance. So she programmed a computer to do the sum and instructed it to keep running? I'm sorry I still din't get it. Can someone please explain this to me as if I was an 8 year old please.

I think I just always notice because I spent years and years as a young woman with people thinking I was a boy. It feeds into women being only able to look one way.

I absolutely would never have commented on her looks as I felt much the same. It was really that the photo appears to show an adam's apple. But as I said it may well be a shit photo. The problem is that the tech world has a high rate of transwomen (compared to the actual community) but a low rate of females which just means these stories can be used as diversity photo ops while not actually doing anything to help women.

I nearly didn't and I really don't like it when people do, generally which is why I googled first. IME of Pink News they really only focus on the lesbians with penises though.

I think I just always notice because I spent years and years as a young woman with people thinking I was a boy. It feeds into women being only able to look one way.

Steppemum Quite impressive, especially when you consider that most teenagers today probably don't even know their own phone numbers! They don't really need to memorise anything as everything is to hand.