Pi - Study and Superb Facts

There are historical evidences to prove that the area of a circle was calculated by taking 3 times the square of its radius by the Babylonians. An ancient Babylonian tablet found between the 1900 - 1680 BC had the value of pi as 3.125.

Ancient Egyptians calculated the area of a circle using the formula [(8d)/9]2. Where "d" is the diameter of the circle. This formula gives an approximate pi value of 3.1605.

An ancient mathematician, Archimedes of Syracuse, who lived between 287 - 212 BC, derived the value of pi based upon the area of a regular polygon inscribed within the circle and the area of a regular polygon within which the circle was circumscribed.

Superb Facts about Pi

• In 1706, an English mathematician introduced the Greek alphabet pi (π) to represent the said value. However, in 1737, Euler officially adopted this symbol to represent the value.
• In 1897, a legislature of Indiana tried to legally establish the most accurate value of pi. However, the bill was never passed.
• Most people are ignorant of the fact that a circle has infinite numbers of corners. The value of pi is the number of times the diameter of a circle would fit around its circumference.
• The value of pi is 22/7 and it is written as π=22/7 or as π=3.14.
• The value of pi with first 100 decimal places is: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679
• You would not find a zero value (0) in the first 31 digits of pi.
• Besides everyday geometry calculations, the value of pi is also used in numerous scientific equations including genetic engineering, measuring ripples, super strings, normal distribution and so on.
• Pi not only an irrational number but also a transcendental number.
• Another interesting fact about pi is that it was taken from the Greek letter "Piwas". It is also the 16th Greek alphabet.
• If you were to print a billion decimal values of pi in ordinary font it would stretch from New York City to Kansas.
• Did you know that it took Yasumasa Kanada, a professor at the University of Tokyo, approximately 116 hours to compute 6,442,450,000 decimal places of Pi on a computer?
• In 1706, John Machin introduced a rapidly converging formula for the calculation of pi. It was π/4= 4 * arc tan (1/5) - arc tan (1/239).
• In 1949, it took 70 hours to calculate 2,037 decimal places of pi using ENIAC (Electronic Numeric Integrator and Computer).
• A German mathematician, Ludolph van Ceulen, devoted his entire life to calculate the first 35 decimal places of pi.
• In 1768, Johann Lambert proved that the value of Pi is an irrational number and in 1882, Ferdinand Lindemann, a renowned mathematician proved that Pi is a transcendental number.