compute-tau

Compute-tau calculates the value of tau to an arbitrary number of digits using the Gauss–Legendre algorithm. It computes 1 million digits within a couple of seconds on your PC.

About τ (tau)

τ (tau) is a mathematical constant equal to 2π, approximately 6.283. Unlike the traditional circle constant π, τ represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius, rather than its diameter. Advocates argue that τ simplifies formulas and makes them more intuitive, especially when dealing with angles measured in radians, where a full turn around a circle naturally corresponds to τ radians.

For a deeper understanding of τ and its benefits, visit The Tau Manifesto by Michael Hartl. This resource provides a comprehensive explanation of why τ may be a better choice than π.

As it is more intuitive, using τ in your code can enhance readability and reduce errors.

Installation

You can include this crate in your Cargo.toml file as follows:

[dependencies]
compute-tau = "0.2"

Usage

To use the compute_tau_str function in your Rust code, add the following to your crate root:

use compute_tau::compute_tau_str;

fn main() {
    // Specify the number of digits of Tau you want to compute
    let digits = 100;

    // Compute Tau
    let tau = compute_tau_str(digits);

    // Print calculated decimal
    println!("Tau to {} decimal places: {}", digits, tau);
}

Command Line Usage

You can also use the compute-tau command from the command line. After installing the crate with

cargo install compute-tau

run the following command:

compute-tau <digits>

Replace <digits> with the number of digits of Tau you want to compute. For example:

compute-tau 100

This will print the value of Tau to 100 decimal places.

Performance

On a MacBook Air (Apple M1, 16 GB), tau to 1 million digits was computed in 1.5 seconds, and to 320 million digits in 24 minutes, but the calculation did not complete within 10 hours for 330 million digits. Similarly, on a Mac mini (Apple M1, 16 GB), tau to 320 million digits was computed, but the calculation did not complete within 10 hours for 330 million digits. It is presumed that the calculation is taking a long time due to memory swapping, as it does not end in a panic due to memory allocation failure but instead continues indefinitely. Since both machines yielded the same result, it is considered that 320 million digits is the maximum number of digits that can be computed using compute-tau with 16 GB of memory. Another limitation is that the digit cannot exceed 1,292,913,982 due to the precision of rug::Float being defined as u32.

License

This crate is licensed under the MIT license.