Over the centuries, many amateur and professional mathematics have taken up the challenge of calculating p to more and more decimal places. Much effort has gone into performing the exhausting calculations required and looking for series that reach the desired answer faster. For some, it becomes an obsession. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) admitted as much in 1666 when he wrote, "I am ashamed to tell you to how many figures I carried these computations, having no other business at the time." He managed to compute at least 15 digits using the formula Pi :