World pi record smashed by female mathematician with help of google

[BiologyIsReal]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47524760

As a maths naive I'm a) not sure how much more useful it is to have 31 trillion digits as opposed to 22 trillion digits but b) well impressed.

Bolding fail bet there's women on here who could fix that

I like to hear from time to time those Woman's Hour items about first-woman-to.

Question: if in the future I hear "first woman to walk on the moon" is it wrong for me wonder if it is a trans woman?

(And then think, well that doesn't count..)

I don't think that people are as obsessed by trans issues

You actually mean obsessed by preserving rights for and equality for women. And yes, I am. It's more under threat now than it has been for a century. With no time for people wittering about 'oooh it's just you on your own being silly' aka 'oooh you'll be in the wrong gang you know?/you won't look cool'

I'm not twelve, that stuff ceased working on me decades ago.

It reminds me of all of the "first woman on the front line" stuff, although worse as at least in that case they didn't forget to mention that the first woman was a man.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37391807

Sorry i havent rtft, disregarding the persons gender, for what purpose is knowing that many trillion decimal places helpful? Like in RL what can be done better or differently now "we " know those extra trillion places?

Krazy - I gave an answer on a similar question somewhere upthread. In this case it's largely a test of cloud technology. Apparently it's also of some use to mathematicians interested in statistics of random numbers, that sort of thing.

Krazy because science is all about trying to find the answers to stuff, to push the boundaries, to satisfy curiosity etc

In this case the achievement is in managing to get a system to compute this >
The actual answer isn't so relevant it was HOW it was done that was a first.

Pi is used as it's the only irrational number (going on forever) that most people are familiar with so if they manage to do whatever with it, it's more newsworthy.

Itsallgoingtobefine

The one where a complaint about the first women directors of a trilogy of mainstream films had the article changed to make them the second. Lilly and Lana Wachowski were added as the first for the matrix. Even though when they made the films they were "identifying as " (ie were) men).

Loads of this shit going on.

Yes it matters.

And OTOH, horse's question re "first woman to walk on the moon" reminds me of Tim Peake having to correct people calling him the first British Astronaut, or calling Helen Sharman the first British woman astronaut.... insidious assumptions which do have to be challenged.

Yes!

And then them all saying OH but TP was first official astronaut blah blah excuses.

That tennis player chap who kept calling it out when interviewers did this was awesome. Andy Murray.

"Andy Murray has corrected a journalist after he said Sam Querrey, who knocked the British player out of Wimbledon earlier, was "the first US player to reach a major semi-final since 2009".

The newly-deposed Wimbledon champion reminded the reporter he was only talking about male players, as there had, of course, been considerably more success for the US on the female side of the sport.

Since 2009, Serena Williams has won 12 Grand Slam tournaments."

Love him for that.

Women and girls can celebrate the achievements of mathematician Karen Uhlenbeck who, in 2019, is the first woman to be awarded the Abel Prize, which can be regarded as the mathematics equivalent of a Nobel Prize. I think her biological sex was observed at birth (in 1942) to be female.

www.newscientist.com/article/2196755-karen-uhlenbeck-is-first-woman-to-win-prestigious-maths-abel-prize/

There is a thread about Karen Uhlenbeck at www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3538127-female-mathematician-wins-prize-despite-sexism-of-universities