Mathematician:William Shanks

Mathematician
English amateur mathematician famous for using Machin's Formula for Pi to calculate $\pi$ (pi) to $707$ places in $1873$, a result which was correct only up to the $527$th place.

The error was highlighted in $1945$ (or $1946$) by, using a mechanical calculator.

Shanks' approximation was the longest expansion of $\pi$ until the advent of the electronic digital computer about one century later.

Shanks also calculated Euler's number $e$ and the Euler-Mascheroni constant $\gamma$ to many decimal places.

Also published a table of primes up to $60 \, 000$ and found the natural logarithms of $2$, $3$, $5$ and $10$ to $137$ places.

Also calculated the exact powers of $2$ up to $2^{721}$.

Nationality
English

History

 * Born: 25 January 1812 in Corsenside (8 km NE of Bellingham), Northumberland, England
 * Died: June 1882 in Houghton-le-Spring, Durham, England

Publications

 * 1853: Contributions to Mathematics, comprising chiefly the Rectification of the Circle

Critical View

 * These tremendous stretches of calculation ... prove more than the capacity of this or that computer for labor and accuracy; they show that there is in the community an increase in skill and courage ...
 * -- a Victorian commentator