Computationally approximating PI

Question

Is this an efficient way to compute the value of Pi, where the limit of j \$\propto\$ accuracy?

PI = 0;
for (var j = 1; j < 100; j+=2) PI += (4/j)*((j+1)%4?1:-1);

The formula I used to write this is:

$$\pi \equiv \frac{4}{1}-\frac{4}{3}+\frac{4}{5}-\frac{4}{7}+\cdots$$

• Tamoghna Chowdhury: Could you please add a description of the mathematics behind your algorithm? That should help us to understand the merits of your approach, over, say something from here
• Tobi: I've edited the question, adding the formula used.

Answer 1

Your code will work eventually, but this series converges very very slowly. In fact, as you can read on Wolfram's web site:

... this sum converges so slowly that 300 terms are not sufficient to calculate pi correctly to two decimal places!

Here's a better way to do it which implements this function:

$$ \pi = \sum_{k=0}^\infty \frac{4(-1)^k}{2k+1} \bigg(\frac{1}{2^{2k+1}} + \frac{1}{3^{2k+1}}\bigg)$$

(function(){
 PI=0; 
 n=-4;
 for(k=0;k<100;k++) {
 z = 2*k+1;
 n *= -1;
 PI += n/z*(Math.pow(2, -z) + Math.pow(3, -z));
 }
 console.log(PI);
})();

• Tobi: I know this is code-review, but is that equation the fastest converging one, or are the limitless / ever-accurate equations.
• Edward: There are equations that converge faster, but I chose this one that was close in computational complexity to the one you originally used. See Approximations of Pi on Wikipedia.