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Ancient civilizations knew that there was a fixed ratio of circumference to diameter that was
approximately equal to three. The Greeks refined the process and Archimedes is credited with the
first theoretical calculation of Pi.
In 1761 Lambert proved that Pi was irrational, that is, that it can't be written as a ratio of integer
numbers.
In 1882 Lindeman proved that Pi was transcendental, that is, that Pi is not the root of any algebraic
equation with rational coefficients. This discovery proved that you can't "square a circle", which was
a problem that occupied many mathematicians up to that time. (More information on squaring the
circle.)
How many digits are there? Does it ever end?
Because Pi is known to be an irrational number it means that the digits never end or repeat in any
known way. But calculating the digits of Pi has proven to be an fascination for mathematicians
throughout history. Some spent their lives calculating the digits of Pi, but until computers, less than
1,000 digits had been calculated. In 1949, a computer calculated 2,000 digits and the race was on.
Millions of digits have been calculated, with the record held (as of September 1999) by a
supercomputer at the University of Tokyo that calculated 206,158,430,000 digits. (first 1,000 digits)
More about the History of Pi can be found at the Mac Tutor Math History archives.
Approximation of Pi
Archimedes calculated that Pi was between 3 10/71 and 3 1/7 (also written 223/71 <
22/7 ). 22/7 is still a good approximation.
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Pi Web Sites
Pi continues to be a fascination of many people around the world. If you are interested in learning
more, there are many web sites devoted to the number Pi. There are sites that offer thousands,
millions, or billions of digits, pi clubs, pi music, people who calculate digits, people who memorize
digits, Pi experiments and more. Check this Yahoo page for a complete listing.
A Cool Pi Experiment
One of the most interesting ways to learn more about Pi is to do pi experiments yourself. Here is a
famous one called Buffon's Needle.
In Buffon's Needle experiment you can drop a needle on a lined sheet of paper. If you keep track of
how many times the needle lands on a line, it turns out to be directly related to the value of Pi.
Buffon's Needle Simulation Applet (Michael J. Hurben)
Buffon's Needle (George Reese, Office for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education
University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana)
Digits of Pi
First 100 digits
Formulas for Pi
2/2 *
(2+
2 )/2 *
(2 + (
(2+
2) ) )/2 * ...c
Leibnitz's Formula
PI/4 = 1/1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + ...
Wallis Product
PI/2 = 2/1 * 2/3 * 4/3 * 4/5 * 6/5 * 6/7 * ...
2/PI = (1 - 1/22)(1 - 1/42)(1 - 1/62)...
Lord Brouncker's Formula
4/PI = 1 +
1
---------------2 +
32
-----------2 +
52
--------2 + 72 ...
(PI2)/6 =
B(k) = the k th Bernoulli number. eg. B0=1 B1=-1/2 B2=1/6 B4=-1/30 B6=1/42 B8=-1/30 B10=5/66. Further Bernoulli
numbers are defined as (n 0)B0 + (n 1)B1 + (n 2)B2 + ... + (n (n-1))B(N-1) = 0 assuming all odd Bernoulli #'s > 1 are
= 0. (n k) = binomial coefficient = n!/(k!(n-k)!)
See Power Summations #2 for simplified expressions (without the Bernoulli notation) of these sums for given values
of k.