Getting That Retro Itch
So last week I was digging through grandpa’s dusty attic boxes, right? Found these yellowed science journals from like 1962. One article talked about scientists using dice games to solve physics problems – called Monte Carlo method. Figured why not try recreating it myself with modern tools? Always loved retro tech stuff.
Setting Up My Janky Test
Grabbed my kid’s crappy laptop since my main rig’s too fancy for this. Installed Python because it’s simple. Wanted to calculate pi like those 60s nerds did. Opened the editor and banged out some code:
- Made a virtual square with X,Y coordinates from -1 to 1
- Wrote function to throw random darts at it
- Checked if dart landed inside imaginary circle
- Kept count of hits vs total throws
First Disaster Run
Hit execute all excited… annnnd got 2.8 for pi. What?! That’s worse than just guessing. Checked my lousy code – turns out I forgot to square the coordinates in circle calculation. Fixed the math:
if (x2 + y2) <= 1:
Tried again with 1000 throws. Got 3.18. Better! But still messy. Realized those old-timers must’ve done millions of throws for decent accuracy.
Patience Testing
Cranked it up to 100,000 throws on this potato laptop. Fan started wheezing like my asthmatic uncle. Went to make coffee while it chugged… spilled grounds everywhere because I was watching the screen. Finally finished with pi ≈ 3.145. Close!
Got greedy. Tried 10 million throws. Computer froze. Found it crashed after 2 hours. Lesson learned: Old methods need old-school patience.
Epiphany Moment
While resetting the damn thing, remembered those scientists didn’t have computers. Used actual dice and paper! Grabbed my kid’s Monopoly dice:
- Assigned numbers to grid coordinates
- Rolled dice 500 times, tracking manually
- Neck started hurting, hand cramped
Finished: pi ≈ 3.21. Worse than code version! But doing it physical made me appreciate those guys elbow-deep in punch cards. Computers changed everything.
Wrapping It Up
Posted results on my wall with the journal page. Wrote conclusions in crayon for effect:
- Even messy simulations give decent results with enough throws
- 1960s scientists had god-tier patience
- Dice suck for math compared to typing code
Left the laptop running overnight – woke up to pi ≈ 3.1417. Good enough! Crazy how chance solves exact problems. Might try simulating nuclear reactions next… after upgrading my PC.
