Talk:Daniel Shanks

William and Daniel Shanks
I find it interesting that the subject (Daniel) had the same last name as a previous record holder for pi calculation, William Shanks. Old William took several decades to do 700+ places (527 of which were right). Daniel here did 100,000 places, a record for the time! I wonder if they were related. Bigmac31 (talk) 21:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Relationship
According to Daniel Shanks's son Oliver Shanks (of Maryland), his Shanks family is not related to William Shanks of England. The ancestors of Daniel and Oliver Shanks and his brother came from Central Europe to America, and when they arrived here, they shortened their Slavic name to "Shanks". Oliver Shanks has his master's degree in mathematics from the University of Maryland, and for a number of years, he and I taught at the same college in Laurel, Maryland.98.67.105.234 (talk) 01:51, 6 October 2013 (UTC)