Pi has been studied by the human race for almost 4,000 years. By 2000 B.C., Babylonians established the constant circle ratio as 3-1/8 or 3.125. The ancient Egyptians arrived at a slightly different value of 3-1/7 or 3.143.
We can never truly measure the circumference or the area of a circle because we can never truly know the value of pi. Pi is an irrational number, meaning its digits go on forever in a seemingly random sequence.
In the Greek alphabet, π (piwas) is the sixteenth letter. In the English alphabet, p is also the sixteenth letter.
In 1995, Hiroyoki Gotu memorized 42,195 places of pi and is considered the current pi champion. Some scholars speculate that Japanese is better suited than other languages for memorizing sequences of numbers.
William Shanks (1812-1882) worked for years by hand to find the first 707 digits of pi. Unfortunately, he made a mistake after the 527th place and, consequently, the following digits were all wrong.
In 2002, a Japanese scientist found 1.24 trillion digits of pi using a powerful computer called the Hitachi SR 8000, breaking all previous records.
One of the earliest known records of pi was written by an Egyptian scribe named Ahmes (c. 1650 B.C.) on what is now known as the Rhind Papyrus. He was off by less than 1% of the modern approximation of pi (3.141592).The first million decimal places of pi consist of 99,959 zeros, 99,758 1s, 100,026 2s, 100,229 3s, 100,230 4s, 100,359 5s, 99,548 6s, 99,800 7s, 99,985 8s, and 100,106 9s.
"Pi Day” is celebrated on March 14 (which was chosen because it resembles 3.14). The official celebration begins at 1:59 p.m., to make an appropriate 3.14159 when combined with the date. Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day (3/14/1879) in Ulm Wurttemberg, Germany.
Pi was first rigorously calculated by one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world, Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 B.C.). Archimedes was so engrossed in his work that he did not notice that Roman soldiers had taken the Greek city of Syracuse. When a Roman soldier approached him, he yelled in Greek “Do not touch my circles!” The Roman soldier simply cut off his head and went on his business.
A refined value of pi was obtained by the Chinese much earlier than in the West. The Chinese had two advantages over most of the world: they used decimal notations and they used a symbol for zero. European mathematicians would not use a symbolic zero until the late Middle Ages through contact with Indian and Arabic thinkers.
- Pi has been studied by the human race for almost 4,000 years. By 2000 B.C., Babylonians established the constant circle ratio as 3-1/8 or 3.125. The ancient Egyptians arrived at a slightly different value of 3-1/7 or 3.143.
- We can never truly measure the circumference or the area of a circle because we can never truly know the value of pi. Pi is an irrational number, meaning its digits go on forever in a seemingly random sequence.
- In the Greek alphabet, π (piwas) is the sixteenth letter. In the English alphabet, p is also the sixteenth letter.
- In 1995, Hiroyoki Gotu memorized 42,195 places of pi and is considered the current pi champion. Some scholars speculate that Japanese is better suited than other languages for memorizing sequences of numbers.
- William Shanks (1812-1882) worked for years by hand to find the first 707 digits of pi. Unfortunately, he made a mistake after the 527th place and, consequently, the following digits were all wrong.
- In 2002, a Japanese scientist found 1.24 trillion digits of pi using a powerful computer called the Hitachi SR 8000, breaking all previous records.
- One of the earliest known records of pi was written by an Egyptian scribe named Ahmes (c. 1650 B.C.) on what is now known as the Rhind Papyrus. He was off by less than 1% of the modern approximation of pi (3.141592).The first million decimal places of pi consist of 99,959 zeros, 99,758 1s, 100,026 2s, 100,229 3s, 100,230 4s, 100,359 5s, 99,548 6s, 99,800 7s, 99,985 8s, and 100,106 9s.
- "Pi Day” is celebrated on March 14 (which was chosen because it resembles 3.14). The official celebration begins at 1:59 p.m., to make an appropriate 3.14159 when combined with the date. Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day (3/14/1879) in Ulm Wurttemberg, Germany.
- Pi was first rigorously calculated by one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world, Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 B.C.). Archimedes was so engrossed in his work that he did not notice that Roman soldiers had taken the Greek city of Syracuse. When a Roman soldier approached him, he yelled in Greek “Do not touch my circles!” The Roman soldier simply cut off his head and went on his business.
- A refined value of pi was obtained by the Chinese much earlier than in the West. The Chinese had two advantages over most of the world: they used decimal notations and they used a symbol for zero. European mathematicians would not use a symbolic zero until the late Middle Ages through contact with Indian and Arabic thinkers.
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