The History of

The Greek letter (pi) is used internationally to represent the number that is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter or the ratio of the area of a circle to the square of its radius. Pi is an irrational number, which means that pi is a number that cannot be expressed in a simple fraction or as a decimal with a set number of decimal places. Pi is also a transcendental number, that is, pi is a number that is not expressible as the root or quotient of integers and pi is a non-repeating infinite decimal. The origin of pi is hard to measure since pi, as a constant has been known for so long. The earliest recordings of pi came from the Egyptians and Babylonians, which is where most of mathematics originated. Since the first known estimates of pi, mathematicians have been trying to approximate the nth digit. Today the first 50 digits of pi have been calculated to be: 3.141592653 5897932384 6264338327 9502884197 1693993751 (OConnor and Robertson, Pi). The earliest recording of pi comes from the Rhind Papyrus (1650 B.C.), where the Egyptians calculated pi to be equal to 4(8/9)2 or 3.1605 . . ., which is very close to the value used today. The value that the Egyptians used is believed to date around 2000 B.C. The next reference to a calculation of pi is by the Babylonians. The Babylonians are thought to have used a few different values for pi. One value believed to be approximated for pi by the Babylonians is 3 1/8 (3.125), a value at least as good as the Egyptian value . In the Old Babylonian period (ca. 1800-1600 B.C.) the circumference of a circle was found by taking three times the diameter, which is the same as using pi equal to 3. Around the same time as the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Indians used the square root of 10 to approximate pi. This value used by the Indians is almost as good as both the Egyptians and Babylonians. All three approximations have an error at the second decimal place (Burton, Mudehwe, OConnor and Robertson).

The Hebrews also used a value of 3 to find the circumference of a circle. The pi approximation used by the Hebrews appears in the Old Testament. The verse is written: And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about (I Kings 7:23). This description of the dimensions of the bath in the temple of Solomon uses the value of 3 for the ratio of the circumference to the diameter (OConnor and Robertson). The next major advancement in the approximation of pi came when Archimedes of Syracuse, in 240 B.C., changed the values that could be used for pi forever when he calculated upper and lower bounds of the number. Archimedes started by drawing a circle with a radius of one and drew a regular hexagon inside the circle. The hexagon was made up of six equilateral triangles therefore the circle was equally divided into six. Each side of each of the triangles equaled the radius of the circle, 1 unit. Since the perimeter of the hexagon equaled 6, pi was greater than 3 but only by a little bit (OConnor and Robertson). Archimedes next tried a polygon that when drawn inside a circle would be closer to the circle than the hexagon. His strategy was to double the sides of the polygon by using a dodecagon. The calculation of the perimeter was not as easy as it was with the hexagon. Archimedes found the perimeter of the dodecagon to be 6.21, making pi greater than 3.1. Archimedes then used the same method and doubled the number of sides in the polygon. With a 24-sided polygon, Archimedes found the perimeter to be 6.26, making pi greater than 3.13 (OConnor and Robertson). Archimedes went as far as a 96-sided regular polygon drawn inside a circle. Once Archimedes calculated the 96-sided polygon he started drawing regular polygons on the outside of the circle, with the circle touching each side of the polygon and the circle completely contained inside each polygon. With a series of polygons inside and outside of the circle, Archimedes managed to bracket the length of the circumference between two sets of numbers, which gradually approached each other. The result of his work was

the inequality, 223/71 < pi < 22/7. The average of the inequality that Archimedes approximated is 3.1485 which is close the value of pi today. The work of Archimedes was a stupendous feat because he did his calculations with only geometry and without the advantages of our decimal system. It is a wonder that Archimedes did not just stop at a 96-sided polygon, but that he actually went that far with his calculations (OConnor and Robertson). As time and mathematics progressed people were able to come up with better approximations of pi. Around 150 A.D., Ptolemy of Alexandria gave a value for pi to be 377/120, which he obtained by using a 360-sided polygon inscribed in a circle, much like Archimedes method. A Chinese mathematician, Liu Hui, wrote in his book, Nine chapters of the Mathematical Art, of a polygon of 384 sides, which he used to derive the bounds of pi to be 3.141024 < pi < 3.142904. Furthermore Hui utilized a 3072-sided polygon and found the value of 3.14159. Around 500 A.D. Tsu Chung-Chi gave the approximation of 355/113, which is correct to 6 decimal places. With the use of a 262sided polygon, Ludolph van Ceulen used Archimedes method to obtain an approximate value for pi correct to 35 decimal places. The Ludolphine number was so amazing that upon Ludolphs death (1610) his wife had all 35 digits carved upon his tombstone. This was one of the last recorded times that pi was evaluated by using Archimedes method (Burton, Mudehwe, OConnor and Robertson). The next great achievement in the calculation of pi came during the European Renaissance. In 1673, Gottfried Leibniz came about an alternating series, /4 = 1 1/3 + 1/5 1/7 + 1/9 1/11 + . . ., which was one of the first formulas used for calculating pi. However, this formula was much too slow computationally and was of little use to mathematics. In a similar approach James Gregory found, /4 = 4 arctan (1 / a) - arctan (1 / b), with a and b large. In 1699 E. Halley Sharp used Gregorys formula to approximate pi to 71 correct digits. In 1701, improving on Gregorys formula, Machin found a formula commonly called the Arctangent formula. The Arctangent formula is:

/4 = 4 arctan (1 / 5) - arctan (1 / 239). With this formula Machin was able to find 100 correct digits. In the centuries to follow many mathematicians used Machins formula. One of the last known uses of Machins formula was in 1873 when the Englishmen William Shanks calculated pi to 707 places of which 527 were correct (Mudehwe, Van den Braden). During the period between Machin and Shanks the greatest accomplishment was when Lambert proved pi was an irrational number. Shortly after Shanks calculation, Lindemann, in 1882, showed that pi was not only an irrational number but a transcendental number. This result by Lindemann proved that squaring the circle is impossible, something that the Greeks had long tried to prove (OConnor and Robertson). With the knowledge that pi is a transcendental number, the Indian mathematician Ramanujan tried to find expressions for pi. One such expression found by Ramanujan is, 63 (17 + 15 root 5) / 25 (7 + 15 root 5) = 3.141592654 This is unbelievably close to pi, the value Ramanujan came up with is correct to nine places. Ramanujan also came up with another method for finding the exact value of pi. Ramanujans formula for pi is: = (k6 root k3) S, S = 3 (-1)n [(6n)!(k2 + nk1)] [n!_(3n)!(8k4k5)n], where k1 = 545140134 k2 = 13591409 k3 = 640320 k4 = 100100025 k5 = 327843840 k6 = 53360. With this formula one can obtain 14 correct decimal places for every term calculated (Van den Braden). One unusual bit of pi history occurred in 1897. A bill was passed in the Indiana House, but not the Senate, that pi would be known as 3. A man that claimed to have squared the circle, trisected the angle, and duplicated the cube, all of which had been believed to be impossible, brought about this bill. This bill even shows up in the

Guinness Book of World Records as the most inaccurate version of pi. Guinness shows the value of pi for the Indiana bill to be 4. This is due to the wording of the bill, in which experts have concluded the bill to suggest pi to be equal to either 3, 3.2, 4, or 9.2376 (Mallette). Beginning in the 20th century work to find the digits of pi was done on computers. In 1947 D.F. Ferguson, by means of a desk calculator (named because the calculator took up an entire desk) found 808 digits. In 1949, the U.S. Army carried pi out to 2,037 digits. Pi eclipsed 10,000 digits in 1958 when F. Genuys found the 10,000th digit and pi passed 1,000,000 with the work of J. Guilloud. In 1986 calculations of pi became more and more advanced. The methods used today are mainly by supercomputers that work for days on end to find the nth digit of pi. In 1995 Y. Kanada found there to be 4,294,960,000 digits in pi. It took Kanada about 0.000002 seconds per digit, while by comparison, it took William Shanks about 1 week per digit when calculating by hand. In 1999 Kanada found there to be 206,158,430,000; this accomplishment took an amazing 37 hours along with another 43 hours to verify (OConnor and Robertson, Pi). There are several more methods to help one find the value of pi but they are much too complicated for an undergraduate student to comprehend, let alone write out. Many of the programs available today run on a computer and find the value for you in a matter of days or hours. Without the early works done by some of the great mathematicians such as Archimedes and Ramanujan, the millionth digit or the 206 billionth digit, may have never been computed. Pi truly is an amazing number.
Works Cited
Burton, David M. The History of Mathematics: An Introduction. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1999. Mallette, Vincent. INWIT- The Indiana Pi Law. 8 April 2000. Online: INWIT. (17 April 2001). Mudehwe, Lazarus. The story of pi. Available: http://geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab3550/pi.htm. (19 April 2001). O,Connor, JJ. & E.F. Robertson. A history of pi. Sept. 1996 Available: http://www-groups.dcs.stand.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Pi_through_the_ages.html. (19 April 2001). Pi. Comptons Interactive Encyclopedia. 1999. Van den Branden, Kurt. Fun with pi. 1996. Available: http://gallery.uunet.be/kurtbdv/pi.html. (17 April 2001).