Letters to the Editor: The Hundred-dollar, Hundred-digit Challenge

To the Editor:

Recently, SIAM News published an interesting article by Nick Trefethen (July/August 2002, page 1) presenting the answers to a set of problems he had proposed previously (January/February 2002, page 1). The answers were computed digits, and the clever methods of computation were described.

I found it surprising that no proof of the correctness of the answers was given. Omitting such proofs is the accepted procedure in scientific computing. However, in a contest for calculating precise digits, one might have hoped for more.

Joseph B. Keller, Stanford University.

Readers with thoughts on the interesting issue raised by Joseph Keller are invited to send them along for possible publication in SIAM News ([email protected]).

• See more news from this issue

Donate · Contact Us · Site Map · Join SIAM · My Account