The paper discusses the asymptotic behavior of generalizations of the Gauss’s arithmetic-geometric mean, associated with the names Meissel (1875) and Borchardt (1876). The "hapless computer experiment" in the title refers to the fact that the author at an earlier stage thought that one had genuine asymptotic formulae but it is now shown that in general "fluctuations" are present. However, no ve...

Using an identity for effective resistances, we find a relationship between the arithmetic-geometric index and the global ciclicity index. Also, with the help of majorization, we find tight upper and lower bounds for the arithmetic-geometric index.