Mathematics

Project
The Story Of Pi " π "

Walaa Al-Kadasi
 The Story Of Pi " π "

· What is " π " ?

Pi, or π, is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its

diameter . Because it is irrational , it can't be written
as a fraction . Instead , it is an infinitely long ,
nonrepeating number .

· 36 facts about pi :

1. The symbol for Pi has been in use for over 250 years .
The symbol was introduced by William Jones , an
Anglo-Welsh philologist in 1706 and made popular
by the mathematician Leonhard Euler .

2. Since the exact value of pi can never be calculated, we

can never find the accurate area or circumference of a
 circle.

3. March 14 or 3/14 is celebrated as pi day because of

the first 3.14 are the first digits of pi. Many math
nerds around the world love celebrating this infinitely
long, never-ending number.

4. The record for reciting the most number of decimal

places of Pi was achieved by Rajveer Meena at VIT
University, Vellore, India on 21 March 2015. He was
able to recite 70,000 decimal places. To maintain the
sanctity of the record, Rajveer wore a blindfold
throughout the duration of his recall, which took an
astonishing 10 hours!

5. If you aren’t a math geek, you would be surprised to

know that we can’t find the true value of pi. This is
because it is an irrational number. But this makes it an
interesting number as mathematicians can express π
as sequences and algorithms.
6. Pi is just another weird or boring mathematical
number. It is a part of Egyptian mythology. People in
Egypt believed that the pyramids of Giza were built on
the principles of pi. The vertical height of the
pyramids have the same relationship with the
perimeter of their base as is the relationship between a
circle’s radius and its circumference. The pyramids
are phenomenal structures in themselves being one of
the seven wonders of the world and attract tourists. So
having π as the core principle makes it really special
for architects.

7. Although Pi day is celebrated on March 14 (3/14), the

exact time for celebration is 1:59 pm so that the exact
number 3.14159 can be reached.

8. Physicist Larry Shaw started 14 March as Pi day at

San Francisco’s Exploratorium. There he is known as
the Prince of Pi.
9. There is an entire language made on the number Pi.
But how is that possible? Well, some people love pi
enough to invent a dialect in which the number of
letters in the successive words are the same as the
digits of pi. But it is not just another nerd quirk that
nobody knows about. Mike Keith wrote an entire book,
called ‘Not a Wake’ in this language.

10. There are many records that show that pi was

discovered a long time ago in the The Babylonians
knew of pi approximately 4000 years ago. Evidence
shows that Babylonians calculated pi as 3.125.

11. There is an interesting reason why the name ‘pi’ was

coined. Before the name pi came, mathematicians had
to say a mouthful. The only descriptive phrase they
could use was “the quantity which when the diameter
is multiplied by it, yields the circumference”. Pi was
named pi by William Jones, a not-so-popular
 mathematician.

12. The number of digits in the number pi is a

phenomenon in itself. Humans can never find all the
digits of number pi because of its very definition.
Babylonian civilization used the fraction 3 ⅛, the
Chinese used the integer 3. By 1665, Isaac Newton
calculated pi to 16 decimal places. This was before the
computers were invented, so determining 16 digits
was a big deal. It was in the early 1700s that Thomas
Lagney calculated 127 decimal places of pi reaching a
new record. In the second half of the twentieth
century, the number of digits of pi increased from
about 2000 to 500,000 on the CDC 600. But this
record was broken to a whole new level in 2017 when
a Swiss scientist computed more than 22 trillion digits
of pi which took more than a hundred days.

13. Pi is considered divine. No, not in the literal sense.

The number is ‘transcendental’ in mathematical terms.
 A mathematician, Johann Lambert, gave proof that pi
is irrational by giving the tangent of x using continued
fraction.

14. Usefulness of pi has been a matter of debate

although it is loved by a lot of math lovers. Some
believe that tau (which amounts to 2π) is a better
suited and intuitive irrational number. For instance,
you can multiply tau with radius and calculate the
circumference of a circle more intuitively. Tau/4 also
represents the angle of a quarter of a circle. Hence its
intuitiveness makes it more appealing to some math
enthusiasts.

15. In the Exploratorium science museum, a circular

parade happens every year on pi day. Each person
participating holds one of the digits in the number pi.
It wasn’t celebrated around the United States like it is
done now until the Congress passed Resolution 224.
The purpose of celebrating Pi day was to cultivate a
 higher level of enthusiasm for math and science.

16. In Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, scientists manage to

dig deep into the mystery of the number pi to uncover
the hidden messages from the creator of the human
race. This new wisdom is capable of bringing depth to
our consciousness.

17. The film Pi: Finding Faith in Chaos depicts the efforts
of the protagonist in searching for answers about pi
and, in turn, the universe. This search drives him nuts.
But the good part is that this movie won the Director’s
Award at the Sundance film festival.

18. A crop circle was found in 2008 that showed a

coded image containing the first ten digits of pi.

19. The calculation of pi is a stress test for a computer. It

works just like a digital cardiogram since it indicates
the level of activity within the computer’s processor.
20. Givenchy sells a men’s cologne with the name ‘Pi’.
The company markets this product as capable of
enhancing sexual appeal of intelligent and visionary
men.

21. The number Pi is not just an important part of

conversations among mathematicians or students. In
the famous O.J. Simpson trial, the defense attorney and
FBI agent’s argument revolved around the value of pi.
This argument over pi showed that the FBI agent’s
findings in the case weren’t accurate because he used
pi inaccurately.

22. The number pi was so mysterious that a Dutch-

German mathematician, Ludolph van Ceulen, spent
most of his life calculating the first 36 digits of pi. It is
said that the first 36 numbers were engraved on his
tombstone, which is now lost.
23. William Shanks, a British mathematician, worked
manually to find the digits of pi. He spent many years
trying to calculate the pi digits by hand and found the
first 707 digits. Unfortunately, the 527th digit he
found was wrong, which made his efforts of finding
the remaining digits useless because they were all
wrong by default.

24. Pi has a sacred bond with the circle. A circle’s angle

spans 360 degrees around its centre and it is a
coincidence that the number 360 is at the 359th digit
position of pi.

25. In the year 1888, an Indiana country doctor claimed

that he learnt the exact measure of a circle through
supernatural means. He believed in his “supernatural”
knowledge so much that he filed a proposal to pass a
bill in the Indiana legislature so that he could
copyright his genius findings. However, there was a
math professor in the legislature who showed the
 fellow how his proposed bill will result in a wrong
value of pi.

26. Even comedians use pi to make people crack at their

jokes. John Evans, a comedian, once said in his
performances, “What do you get if you divide the
circumference of a jack-o’-lantern by its diameter?
Pumpkin π.”

27. The number pi is literally infinitely long. But the

number 123456 doesn’t appear anywhere in the first
million digits of pi. It is a bit shocking because if a
million digits of pi don’t have the sequence 124356, it
definitely is the most unique number.

28. Why are we so obsessed about pi? Because we are

looking for a pattern. Human beings love to find
analogies and patterns in everything. And the number
pi is so long and mysterious that mathematicians love
to find patterns in this number.
29. Chinese people were far ahead of the West in
finding the digits of pi. Why? As many
mathematicians believe, the Chinese language is more
conducive to mathematical computations. Chinese
mathematicians were ahead in the pi game because of
two reasons: they had decimal notations and they had
a symbol for the number zero. It wasn’t until the late
middle ages that European mathematicians started
using the number zero. At that time, European
mathematicians partnered with Arab and Indian
minds to bring the symbol of zero into their system.

30. In the ancient times, mathematicians used a unique

method to calculate pi. They would add more and
more sides to a polygon so that its area approached the
area of a circle. Archimedes, the most famous Greek
mathematician and inventor, used a polygon with 96
sides. Many other mathematicians also used this
polygon-method to compute the infinitely long
 number pi. In China, a mathematician used about 200
and then over 3,000 sides in a polygon to arrive at the
value 3.14159. Some other used about 25,000 sides to
calculate pi. It is quite clear how obsessed the
mathematicians were with the number pi.

31. The usage of pi has evolved over the years. Before

17th century, pi was only used for circles, as we
mentioned earlier how strong the bond between pi
and a circle is. But in the 17th century, people realized
that pi can be used to calculate areas of other curves
including arches and hypocycloids. In the 20th
century, pi was used for a wide set of applications in
areas such as probability and various mathematical
theories.

32. Many mathematicians believe that it is more

accurate to say that a circle has infinite corners than it
is to say that it has none. It is only reasonable to
assume that this “infinite” number of corners
 correlates to the infinite number of digits of pi.

33. The number pi is hard to calculate but is super

effective when you use it to calculate other things. For
instance, if you round the number pi to just 9 digits
after the decimal and use it to calculate earth’s
circumference, the results would be amazingly
accurate. For every 25,000 miles, the number pi will
only err to 1/4th of an inch. If you love math, you will
realize how amazing this actually is.

34. Pi is so amazing and “mysterious” that it has been

used in mysterious situations in movies. In the 1996
thriller movie Torn Curtain, Pi is the secret code.

35. People are forever going crazy about calculating the

most number of digits of pi. It is like a competition that
never ends. In the year 2010, a Japanese engineer and
an American computer wizard broke the record for
the most number of pi digits by calculating upto 5
 trillion digits. The amazing part is that they didn’t use
any supercomputers. They just used desktop
computers, 20 external hard disks and used their
brilliant minds.

36. There is a Stark Trek episode called ‘Wolf in the

Fold’ in which Spock thwarts the evil computer by
challenging it to compute to the last digit of pi. It is
amazing how no evil movie character can do anything
about the number pi.

37. The Greek letter π is the first letter of the word

periphery and perimeter. And as we all know, pi is the
ratio of a circle’s “periphery” to its diameter.

38. Many genius minds have a relation with the Pi day.

Albert Einstein was born on Pi day. Stephen Hawkings
died on 3/14, Pi day at the age of 76.