was a Japanese

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. He was born on

Sado Island is a city located on in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. Since 2004, the city has comprised the entire island, although not all of its total area is urbanized. Sado is the sixth largest island of Japan in area following the four main islands and Ok ...

in 1927. He graduated from Utsunomiya Agricultural College in 1948. He began to write poems from the day after Japan had ended its role in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Being inspired from

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

and

Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

, he wrote poems that ask the meaning of

being In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...

. He was part of the VOU and Arechi poetry groups, and was awarded the Attilio Bertolucci Award for his poetry. Takano also discovered a

Machin-like formula In mathematics, Machin-like formulae are a popular technique for computing to a large number of digits. They are generalizations of John Machin's formula from 1706: :\frac = 4 \arctan \frac - \arctan \frac which he used to compute to 100 d ...

for calculating pi.Machin's Formula and Pi
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Selected bibliography

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Takano, Kikuo 20th-century Japanese mathematicians 21st-century Japanese mathematicians People from Niigata Prefecture 2006 deaths 1927 births 20th-century Japanese poets