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Science 14 July 2000:
Vol. 289. no. 5477, p. 241
DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5477.241e
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Modern machines crank out digits of pi by the gigabyte, but 400 years ago Dutch mathematician Ludolph van Ceulen got the ball rolling with a hand computation of 35 digits--all correct. A memorial stone honoring van Ceulen's accomplishment was unveiled 5 July at St. Peter's Church in Leiden. The gravestone, patterned after the original which was lost, was created to mark the 400th anniversary of van Ceulen's appointment to the engineering school in Leiden. All those zeroes are part of the denominator: In van Ceulen's day decimal point notation was just coming in.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)