Japanese mathematician who pioneered new computer methods for calculating the value of π to unprecedented levels of precision. Prior to Kanada's work,π had been calculated to 2,037 places using computers while, calculating by hand, solving π to 707 places had required 15 years of effort. In 1988 Kanada calculated the value of π to over 200 million decimal places in six hours of "supercomputer" time. Since then, using other supercomputers, π has been calculated to over 1 billion decimal places.