A formula for pi involving nested radicals

Abstract

We present a new formula for pi involving nested radicals with rapid convergence. This formula is based on the arctangent function identity with argument $x=\sqrt{2-{{a}_{k-1}}}/{{a}_{k}}$, where \[ {{a}_{k}}=\underbrace{\sqrt{2+\sqrt{2+\sqrt{2+\cdots +\sqrt{2}}}}}_{k\,\,\text{square}\,\,\text{roots}} \] is a nested radical consisting of $k$ square roots. The computational test we performed reveals that the proposed formula for pi provides a significant improvement in accuracy as the integer $k$ increases.