New Digital Resources: Pi--the mysterious number
Pi--the mysterious number
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See the exhibit in the Science Library atrium celebrating the number Pi. |
PI – the Most Mysterious Number
PI, the world’s most mysterious number, has been a part of human culture and the educated imagination for more than 2500 years. You may remember that in the school curriculum the value that PI took was 3.14. But what is PI? What is the real value of PI? How can the value be found today using the most modern technology? How might PI be used? These questions aroused the curiosity of thousands of people around the world.
In the recent years, PI has provided fascinating examples of computational mathematics. Building upon the continuous attempts at getting ever-more-exact values of PI by seeing how many decimal places computers can generate, and how fast they can do it, has become the challenge today for computers and computer scientists, rather than for mathematicians, who still search for more elegant algorithms to accomplish these tasks.
Not only could PI provide us with curiosities and applications, but also it creates other forms of mathematical entertainment. Here are a few interesting facts about PI:
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In 1706 William Jones (1675 – 1749) published his book Synopsis palmariorum matheseos, in which he used PI to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. This is believed to have been the first time that PI was used as it is today.
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It was the legendary Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, often considered the most prolific writer in the history of mathematics, who is largely responsible for today’s common use of PI.
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Now we are in the trillions of decimal places.
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Hiroyuki Goto is the current world record holder for the most digits of PI memorized, required over nine hours to recite 42000+ digits [http://www.pi-world-ranking-list.com/lists/details/goto.htm].
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PI lovers celebrate March 14 as PI-Day. What a coincidence that Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879.
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Check MathSciNet or Academic Search Complete for articles about PI
Here are some websites to help celebrate PI-Day:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/pi
http://mathwithmrherte.com/pi_day.htm
http://mathforum.org/t2t/faq/faq.pi.html
Ying Shen and Lizbeth Langston
Science Reference Librarians
