A350843 The least number of terms needed in the Taylor series approximation of arctan(1/239) such that Machin's formula with n terms in the Taylor series approximation of arctan(1/5) achieves the most correct digits of Pi.

1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11, 11, 12, 12, 12, 13, 13, 13, 14, 14, 14, 14, 15, 15, 16, 16, 16, 16, 17, 17, 17, 17, 18, 18, 18, 19, 19, 19, 19, 20, 20, 20

Offset: 1

Author

Matthew Scroggs, Jan 18 2022

Keywords

• nonn
• base
• more

Comments

Machin's formula states that Pi/4 = 4*arctan(1/5) - arctan(1/239). An approximation of Pi can be found by computing this using a Taylor series approximation of arctan. If n terms are used in the approximation of arctan(1/5), then a(n) is the least number of terms that can be used in the approximation of arctan(1/239) to get the largest possible number of correct digits of Pi.

Examples

			When using 5 terms in the Taylor series expansion of arctan(1/5) and 2 terms in the expansion of arctan(1/239), Machin's formula gives 3.141592682405... which is correct to 7 decimal places. If more than 2 terms are used in the second expansion, no more correct digits are obtained. If fewer than 2 terms are used, fewer correct digits will be obtained. Therefore a(5) = 2.
		

Links

• Matthew Scroggs, Python code
• Wikipedia, John Machin

Crossrefs

Cf. A000796, A096954, A096955.

A350799(n) is the number of decimal places that will be correct when n terms are used for arctan(1/5) and a(n) terms are used for arctan(1/239).