If you were a good student in elementary school, then you memorized pi as 3.14 and calculated all the necessary circles, namely the circumference and area. If you were a better student, you might have remembered the definition of pi as the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. Better yet, you might have a layman’s understanding of pi which is a number of times the diameter of a circle to fit around a circle. But none of these are attractive. To explore a little deeper, and the strange appearance of pi in the world that makes such a fascinating number.
History of pi: The first known appearance of pi was found in an Egyptian papyrus, which is said to be a copy of an earlier volume, in which Ahmesis referenced pi as 256/81. The following notable appearance of pi is found in the Bible. In Kings, the Temple of Solomon is expressed in dimensions of 30 cubits and 10 cubits, hence 3, and therefore the estimate of the Hebrew pi. (Some grammarians consider this sufficient, others argue at this point). It is advanced to 250 B.C. and Archimedes describes the first iterative mathematical algorithm for calculating pi. Four hundred years later, Ptolemy found 377/120 pi, which is accurate to 3 decimal places. And, about 500 A.D. in China, Tsu Ch’ung-Chih described 355/113 pi as, which is accurate to six decimal places. As of August 2010, we now know pi to the 5 trillionth decimal place. It is difficult to grasp the enormity of a trillion, much less five trillion. To give you an idea, if you printed all five trillion digits in a typical size font, you would need to send the paper back to the moon five times.
Pi in Nature: Since the value of pi has been discovered in the study of circles, there is no wonder that pi it is found in so many aspects of nature. From the dilated pupils of the eye to the blood cells on the beach, the spiral threads The DNA that makes up the human body or all biological life – all belong to pi.
Pi in Chaos: Chaos is another word for chance, or chance, or better known in the world of math probability. And one of the most famous needle experiments of probability is Buffon. This experiment basically states that if you drop a bunch of needles into a lined piece of paper, the chance that the needle will cross the line is directly proportional to, you guessed it, pi. There are many more details to this experiment, such as equidistant lines and the like, but if you’re looking for statistical tables and equations, you’d want to look somewhere other than a general article on pi.
Pi in Everything: It is surprising that the same pi used by students to calculate the area of a circle in the sixth grade test is the same number used by Einstein in the field of general relativity. It is also found in Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and String Theory. This Mass Theory is not trivial. Also, the most well-known theory of all, it basically states that everything can be broken down into strings (even more than atoms), and that one differs from the other by the amount of vibration of each string (a very liberal paraphrase). So now pi to, everything is fine.
Pi for Fun: If you happen to have a lot of hats, and you can’t remember your hat size, just measure your head, divide by pi, and round to the nearest eighth of an inch. Or if you happen to need to know the height of an elephant, and you are strong enough to reach that elephant’s foot, you can measure the diameter of the foot, and multiply that by 2 feet to get a good estimate. I’ve never had the height of an elephant, so I’ve never tried the elephant formula, but the hair trick works pretty well.
Pi: Excerpt from a poem called “Pi” by Wislawa Szymborksa (Nobel Prize winning poet)
… the travelers of the fingers that is pi
it does not stop at the edge of the page;
but it also flows into the air table;
a wall, a leaf, a bird’s nest, a cloud straight into the sky;
through all the rage and depth.
Oh, how short, almost like a mouse, the comet’s tail!
Life of Pi, 13 April 2006, The Independent, Retrieved 2010-12-6
Buffon’s Needle, Wikipedia, Retrieved 2010-12-6
Ouellette, Jennifer, The Quest to Find a Menagerie of Exotic Particles, Discovery News, 2010-12-6
Szymborska, Wislawa, pi, Famous Poets and Poems, Retrieved 12/6/2010
