March 14: Pi day; five tasty facts about the famous ratio

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13 Mar 2010, 5:35 am

To those who are also interested in numbers:

Did you know Sunday March 14 is Pi day?

Here's an article with five facts about the famous ratio 3.14:
NewScientist - Pi day: five tasty facts about the famous ratio


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ursaminor
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13 Mar 2010, 5:57 am

That is pretty irrational.



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13 Mar 2010, 8:14 am

My son is just learning about pi in school. He thinks it's pretty cool. I told him we could celebrate by having a pie. I'm going to show him your cool facts. I suspect he may be one of those kids who dislike arithmetic but love higher math.



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13 Mar 2010, 8:42 am

Scientist wrote:
To those who are also interested in numbers:

Did you know Sunday March 14 is Pi day?

Here's an article with five facts about the famous ratio 3.14:
NewScientist - Pi day: five tasty facts about the famous ratio


Pi is an irrational non-algebraic real number. 3.14 is a crude approximation. Any finite decimal expansion is a crude approximation to pi. Some are less crude than others.

ruveyn



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13 Mar 2010, 8:48 am

My favorite pi fact is the Euler formula:

e^(i*pi) = -1.

Things do not get too much prettier than that.

ruveyn



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13 Mar 2010, 8:58 am

Scientist wrote:
To those who are also interested in numbers:

Did you know Sunday March 14 is Pi day?


yep. :wink:



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13 Mar 2010, 9:05 am

Aimless wrote:
My son is just learning about pi in school. He thinks it's pretty cool. I told him we could celebrate by having a pie. I'm going to show him your cool facts. I suspect he may be one of those kids who dislike arithmetic but love higher math.


i just hate that π is pronounced as "pie" in english (american) and not as the greeks originally do... it's called "pee" in greek... like in "aspie"........... but "pee" is obvious something else in english... :lol:

lucky me. i live in a part of the world where π is pronounced correctly.



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13 Mar 2010, 9:11 am

aspi-rant wrote:
Aimless wrote:
My son is just learning about pi in school. He thinks it's pretty cool. I told him we could celebrate by having a pie. I'm going to show him your cool facts. I suspect he may be one of those kids who dislike arithmetic but love higher math.


i just hate that π is pronounced as "pie" in english (american) and not as the greeks originally do... it's called "pee" in greek... like in "aspie"........... but "pee" is obvious something else in english... :lol:

lucky me. i live in a part of the world where π is pronounced correctly.


Oops. Well I'd rather celebrate with pie than pee. :)



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13 Mar 2010, 10:48 am

ursaminor wrote:
That is pretty irrational.

:lol:



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13 Mar 2010, 3:19 pm

aspi-rant wrote:
i just hate that π is pronounced as "pie" in english (american) and not as the greeks originally do... it's called "pee" in greek... like in "aspie"........... but "pee" is obvious something else in english... :lol:


... and Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel (in the life of Pi by Yann Martel) had a very good response to mispronunciation of his name, which "should be pi, as in the French piscine".

My favourite estimation of pi is by drawing a square of sides 2 around the origin, and a circle of radius 1 that exactly inside the square, and then the ratio of randomly-distributed points that are inside the circle (x^2 + y^2 <= 1) to points inside the square (-1 <= x <=1 & -1 <= y <=1) is pi / 4. So the value of pi gradually evolves from a sequence of random number pairs.



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13 Mar 2010, 3:33 pm

As usual I'll be celebrating by ordering a 12 inch pepperoni pizza pie for Pi Day.....

Image

Yum yum........


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14 Mar 2010, 1:34 am

ruveyn wrote:
Pi is an irrational non-algebraic real number. 3.14 is a crude approximation. Any finite decimal expansion is a crude approximation to pi. Some are less crude than others.
Of course.
I actually had been thinking of writing it in my OP as: 3.14..... (to infinity), but I thought that would be too aspieish ;)

aspi-rant wrote:
i live in a part of the world where π is pronounced correctly.
Yeah, me too :)

I just don't understand the dropping the needles on a lined paper sheet thing written in the article.
I mean, it just depends on the size of the needles, the thickness of the lines and the distance between the lines, right (which are not always the same) :roll:


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aspi-rant
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14 Mar 2010, 4:51 am

Scientist wrote:
aspi-rant wrote:
i live in a part of the world where π is pronounced correctly.
Yeah, me too :)


... je woont in mijn geboorteland... ;-)



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14 Mar 2010, 4:57 am

recently the 21 year old dane Mark Aarøe Nissen stalled in his attempt to make a new record - 24,544 decimals which would be 40 more than Daniel Tammet was able to - he reached 17.108 decimals, at which point he unfortunately changed the order of the two following numbers.... :(



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14 Mar 2010, 5:00 am