After following the correct link from @nomemory in the comments, this is good for a bit of a chuckle once you see the formula. If you can evaluate the formula you probably have a calculator or computer on hand and could compute the original value to double precision (I'm not even sure that the approximation would compute faster, but I didn't benchmark it).

But even though the approximation has no value in a real world application, the description of getting to the approximation is really good. I've never heard of Pade approximations before, and I liked the lead in from small angle approximations and Taylor series. I'd say this post is accessible to (and can be appreciated by) advanced undergraduates in engineering or math or comp sci.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42174105

New submission here.